Church and State in Massachusetts 
1691 - 1740 



BY 



SUSAN MARTHA REED 

B.A. Mount Holyoke College, 1907 
M.A. University of Illinois, 1908 



A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the require. 

ments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 

History in the Graduate School of the 

University of Illinois 1913 



URBANA, ILL., 1914 



11/1 



Copyright, 1914 
By the University of Illinois 



^» Of D.f 



L-^ 



1}V 




PREFACE. 

Six years ago I was working on a brief study of the 
ecclesiastical development of provincial Massachusetts, to 
present as a master's thesis at the University of Illinois. 
In putting together the material I was struck with the fact 
that there were some broad empty spaces in the story of 
the gradual encroachments on the old Puritan system by 
religious dissenters. By the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury Anglicans, Baptists and Quakers were all recognized 
in ecclesiastical law and possessed certain privileges, but 
the process by which these results had been gained was not 
clear. Histories of New England Baptists showed that 
the real work of this sect was practically limited to the 
second half of the century; local histories of Anglican 
churches recounted the efforts of the Massachusetts 
Churchmen; but neither explained the steps by which all 
three groups gained a fairly comfortable status in Massa- 
chuset^*^; law before the middle of the eighteenth century. 

A solution of this problem has been found in the early 
records of the Society of Friends in New England and in 
London, The best collection of New England Quaker rec- 
ords, the minutes of the New England Yearly Meeting and 
of the Rhode Island Quarterly, are in the library of the 
Moses Brown School at Providence. Others may be found 
at the Newport Historical Society, the New Bedford meet- 
ing house and the meeting house at Lynn. All have been 
used again and again for local and genealogical purposes 
but rarely for any general study. In every case they show 
so close a connection between the Quakers of Massachusetts 
and those of England that the records of the London 
Yearly Meeting and the London Meeting for Sufferings 
are essential for a clear understanding of what the New 
England Quakers of the early eighteenth century were 
doing. At Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, the records of 
the London Quakers are preserved in the Friends' Refer- 

3 



i CHUKCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [458 

ence Library and tell a story of astonishing Quaker activ- 
ity, of which the work done for New England was but a 
small part. 

I wish to express grateful appreciation to the mem- 
bers of the Society of Friends who put their time at my 
disposal and made it possible for me to use the various 
Quaker records. Here I would mention especially Dr. 
Edward T. Tucker of New Bedford, Dr. Seth K. Gifford 
of the Moses Brown School at Providence, and Norman 
Penney of the Friends' Reference Library in London. 

Aside from the Quaker collections my materials have 
been found in the State House at Boston, the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society, the New England Baptist Histor- 
ical Society, the Boston Public Library, the Rhode Island 
Historical Society, the John Carter Brown Library at 
Providence, Essex Institute at Salem, Bristol County 
(Mass.) Court House at Taunton; and in London at the 
S. P. Gr. House, the British Museum, Dr. Williams' Li- 
brary, the library of Fulham Palace, the Public Record 
Ofl&ce, and the ofiflce of the Privy Council. 

I especially want to acknowledge the courtesy and 
kindness of Mr. C. F. Pascoe who made it possible for me 
to use the letters and journal of the Society for the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel, and the Rev. Sadler Phillips who put 
at my disposal certain boxes of papers belonging to the 
library of the Bishop of London. 

For constant assistance and advice I am indebted to 
Professor Evarts B. Greene of the University of Illinois, 
under whose direction this study has been completed. 

Susan Maetha Reed. 

Lake Erie College^ 

September, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 3 

CHAPTER I 
Introduction 7 

CHAPTER H 
The Ecclesiastical System of Provincial Massachusetts 19 

CHAPTER HI 
Opposing Elements 35 

CHAPTER IV 
The System in Practice 50 

CHAPTER V 
The Quakers and Their Allies 86 

CHAPTER VI 
The Church of England 148 

Conclusion 190 

Bibliography 195 

Index 203 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 

The year 1691 opens the second period in the constitu- 
tional history of Massachusetts. From the coming of the 
Puritan settlers of the town of Boston in the stirring days 
of Charles I's reign to the last years of the restored Stuarts, 
the Bay Colony had nothing more elaborate than the old 
charter of 1629 as its instrument of government. This was 
not primarily a document for the governing of a colony 
but the charter of a commercial company, organized by 
certain English Puritans with a view of settling the Mas- 
sachusetts shore, but not then ready to state their purpose 
of becoming colonizers. With the sudden transformation 
of the stockholders of the IMassachusetts Bay Company 
into settlers of Massachusetts Bay, this charter, carried 
across the Atlantic, became the source of authority in the 
local administration of affairs, and by a gradual process of 
stretching and adapting its provisions to suit the new con- 
ditions it was made to serve as a colonial constitution for 
over lialf a century. In this way an unusual degree of inde- 
pendence was maintained by the local authorities, and the 
spirit of the leaders in this Puritan experiment in govern- 
ment became strongly fastened on the manners of the col- 
ony. A governor and council as well as an assembly were 
elected by the freemen of the colony, and the legislative 
body kept up the traditions of the first-comers in maintain- 
ing a theocratic and exclusive form of government which 
was fully developed and fairly aggressive by 1660. 

This in itself was irritating to the restored Stuarts, 
who were suspicious of an independent colonial govern- 
ment so thoroly Puritan; but the attack which was 
begun upon Massachusetts in Charles II's reign was pri- 
marily economic. The Navigation Acts of England were 
fashioned to produce a more efficient commercial system 

7 



8 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [462 

throughout the empire. To promote this scheme, every 
province must bury its individual advantage for the good 
of the whole, — a thing which the colony of Massachusetts 
Bay was not content to do. The resistance to authority 
which Massachusetts offered, with other evidences of an 
independent spirit, was the cause of the investigation or- 
dered in the colony in the sixties, of the coming of Edward 
Randolph as royal agent, and of the subsequent quo war- 
ranto proceedings which resulted in the loss of the charter. 
Pending the organization of a strong royal government, 
Massachusetts during part of the year 1686 was under the 
authority of a governor and council appointed by the king. 
Then followed its incorporation in the Dominion of New 
England, a territory planned to embrace all the broad 
lands lying between the Delaware and the St. Lawrence, 
and placed in the hands of Sir Edmund Andros as governor 
and representative of the royal prerogative of the later 
Stuarts. Widespread dissatisfaction with the Andros re- 
gime found a chance to express itself when the news of the 
English revolution of 1688 reached Boston, and the royal 
government was then overthrown. 

In the meantime Increase Mather, who had been dis- 
patched to England as the representative of Massachusetts 
in the general resistance to Andros, had been making every 
effort in frequent audiences with James and later with 
William to secure the old charter once more. This proved 
impossible and inadvisable; all that remained was to at- 
tempt to obtain a new charter from William and Mary 
wliich should reserve to the governing powers of Massa- 
chusetts as much as possible of their former rights and 
privileges. The result was the province charter of 1691 
which opened the second period of Massachusetts history. 
During the interim between the overthrow of Andros and 
the arrival of the new charter a temporary government 
along the old lines managed affairs but gave way to the 
new regime when the second charter reached Boston. The 
method of reorganization in Massachusetts indicates the 
extent to which William III continued the colonial policy 



463] INTRODUCTION 9 

bequeathed him by the Stuarts. In the charter of 1691 
Massachusetts, which now included Plymouth, was made 
a royal province. The governor was to be appointed by the 
king and to possess an extensive veto power, while the king 
himself held the further right of refusing colonial legisla- 
tion. By these means the authority of the General Court 
would be much limited and the province would be forced 
to fall in line to a certain extent with the wishes of the 
English government. The old order suffered severely by 
these limitations of its political power. It suffered also as 
an ecclesiastical state through a change in the francliise. 
,The older rule of church membership as a qualification for 
voting now gave place to a property qualification, and many 
persons formerly excluded now had a voice in the govern- 
ment. Thus it came about that Massachusetts began the 
second period of her history with an enlarged boundary 
and under a royal government, on aristocratic lines as 
before, but no longer as a theocracy. The influence of the 
new government on the relation between church and state 
was soon to become apparent. 

The Massachusetts charter, as we have seen, illus- 
trates the way in which William III followed the colonial 
policy of the last two Stuarts in its political and economic 
phases. William believed, as had the Stuarts, that the 
well being of the empire lay in the enforcement of the 
Navigation Acts; he believed that colonial governments 
which had shown a tendency to resist such law in a spirit 
of independence must be controlled, and that the way to do 
this was to be found in uniting them and bringing them 
more closely under the crown. In the reign of Charles II 
there had appeared some indications of a desire to advance 
a religious policy, suggesting the ambitions of Archbishop 
Laud in the days of Charles I. That unity, so desirable in 
the administration of the colonies, might be forwarded by 
supporting the missionary work of the Anglican Church 
in the British possessions beyond the seas, and by means 
of the establishment of Episcopacy as the state church 
throughout the colonial empire the royal government might 



10 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [464 

have a definite hold upon the colonies. That variety in 
religious forms and creeds, which was characteristic of 
British America, was increasing the growth of particular- 
ism which the authorities at home were anxious to prevent, 
as it made more difficult the problems of administration. 
It is doubtful if such a plan was ever frankly recognized 
as a governing policy. Certain it is that while the com- 
mercial greatness of England was an object which each 
reigning house and each political party came more and 
more to seek, the enforcement of such a religious policy as 
this depended too much upon the attitude of monarch or 
chief minister toward the English Church. 

If such a scheme was in existence, hdng dormant, at 
the accession of William and Mary, it was not to be called 
to activity by a representative of Dutch Protestantism and 
low churchmanship. Succeeding reigns, which adhered to 
the enforcement of British imperial control over the polit- 
ical and economic life of the colonies, were inconsistent in 
ecclesiastical affairs. This side of colonial policy was for 
the most part neglected during the century introduced by 
the coming of William of Orange except under Queen 
Anne. The reign of William and Mary was in this way a 
disappointment to the English Church, and much more so 
was the period of the early Georges, when the Church in 
its enterprises over the seas received little sympathy from 
Walpole. For this reason the Church of England, during 
the greater part of this time, found itself on almost the 
same footing in the colonies as any one of the dissenting 
sects. The laws which proclaimed an establishment at 
home were not generally considered as extending to the 
colonies. Whatever attempts were made to advance Epis- 
copacy in the provinces belonged not to the government 
but to the Church itself, working through individuals and 
organizations in both England and America, and only on 
rare occasions assisted by governmental authority. 

While the government failed to carry out the plan of 
promoting the Church in the colonies, the Church itself 
turned to the matter with zeal. Beginning with the efforts 



465] INTRODUCTION 11 

of the Bishop of London, acting as diocesan of the colonies, 
and continued by the Society for Promoting Christian 
Knowledge (S. P. C. K.), under the influence of Dr. Bray, 
the work culminated in the formation of the Society for 
Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S. P. G.), which 
was to devote itself entirely to the British possessions 
beyond the seas. In the reign following that of William 
and Mary, when the influence of Queen Anne was cast on 
the side of the Society, it made a real beginning and grew 
rapidly. 

The Church of England's enthusiastic interest in mis- 
sionary work among the colonies of British America had 
no counterpart in any of the other Protestant sects of the 
mother country except the Quaker body. At the opening 
of the eighteenth century the Protestants of England out- 
side of the Anglican Church were divided among four 
important denominations, — Presbyterian, Congregational, 
Baptist and Quaker,— and these sects possessed certain 
differences which distinguished them from one another as 
clearly as from the established church. Closest to the 
Church of England were the Presbyterians who still fa- 
vored a state church but disapproved of much of the form 
and ceremony which the Anglicans maintained. The Con- 
gregationalists, with doctrinal views which were little 
different from those of the Presbyterians, denounced the 
theory of a church establishment, and were therefore more 
in sympathy with the Baptists than with the Presbyterians, 
except in theology. The Baptists, the term covering a 
number of dissenting groups which traced their origin to 
the continent, were more radical in their treatment of the 
ideas of the Keformation than any of the other noncon- 
formists except the Quakers. The latter far surpassed 
them, standing alone as the Protestants of Protestants, 
unique in belief, in an exclusive attitude toward other 
Christians, and in their customs. During the last decade 
of the seventeenth century the leaders of the Presbyterians 
and the Congregationalists, the two sects having most in 
common, made some earnest attempts to unite on a single 



12 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [466 

platform, but neither group as a whole responded with 
enthusiasm, and the plan fell through. The same fate met 
another scheme for bringing together Presbyterians, Con- 
gregationalists and Baptists into a loose union. Through 
all these years the Presbyterians were the most favored by 
the Church and were far more inclined to compromise in 
matters of form and ceremony than the more rigid Baptists 
and Congregationalists who accordingly looked upon them 
with some distrust. 

Union among these three bodies of dissenters was 
apparently impossible, and as time went on it became 
evident that they were less numerous and less vigorous 
than their early history had predicted. They were no 
longer growing rapidly, adding to their ranks at the ex- 
pense of the Church of England, as they had in earlier 
days; they were at odds with one another and they were 
torn with religious controversy, each within itself. In the 
last decade of the seventeenth century came the lengthy 
discussion connected with the various attempts made to 
secure the passage of a comprehension bill which would 
make it possible for many of the nonconformists to be 
gathered again into the national church. When this failed, 
bringing out the points of difference rather than of likeness 
among Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, 
and the impossibility of broadening the Church so as to 
include any great number of them, they were almost im- 
mediately overtaken by the reactionary legislation of the 
early eighteenth century. After their vain struggle, during 
Queen Anne's reign, to oppose the Occasional Conformity 
and Schism Acts which seriously limited the political 
sphere and educational advantages of all who were not 
Churchmen, many gave up the position they had held as 
too costly a luxury. The great men of the first generation 
had not been followed by others of so high a degree of 
eminence, able to lead their followers in the face of changed 
conditions, and many of the prominent nonconformists, 
when convinced that no method of comprehension could be 
arranged, or when occasional conformity was made illegal, 



467] INTRODUCTION 13 

returned to the Anglican Church. Finally, the reign of 
Queen Anne was hardly ended when the anti-Trinitarian 
controversy became acute, stretching over a period of many 
years and dividing the ranks of the nonconformists once 
more, now on new lines. Real vigor and unity were con- 
spicuously lacking in the three English nonconforming 
sects which traced their origin to the Reformation. 

The case of the Quakers was very different. By the 
second quarter of the eighteenth century their strangely 
rapid decline had begun but in George I's reign it was not 
yet apparent that their days of steady growth were num- 
bered, and these years mark for them a period of great 
vigor as a religious body and as a political force. Actual 
persecution was now a thing of the past, and they were 
living like the other dissenters under the Toleration Act. 
In wealth and political influence they occupied a position 
second only to that of the established church. Their polit- 
ical power should in large measure be traced to their 
strongly centralized organization over which the London 
Yearly Meeting exercised supreme authority. Difficulties 
carried by weekly and monthly meetings to this central 
body were turned over by it to the Meeting for Sufferings 
which in frequent sittings considered all subjects with due 
care and took active measures for redress. Through nu- 
merous wealthy and prominent members who were close 
to the government in William's reign the ear of authority 
was reached with little difficulty. It was in Quakerism ' 
that the Anglican Church of the late seventeenth century 
saw its most dangerous adversary and in the Quaker doc- 
trine read a statement of belief which it looked upon as 
non-Christian and attacked accordingly. The conversion 
of the Quakers of England was one of the purposes of the 
S. P. C. K., while work among the Quakers of the colonies 
was an important object of the S. P. G. 

The duel between the Quakers and the Anglicans in 
the colonies, each backed by a powerful influence at home, 
the London Yearly Meeting and the English Church, be- 
came a leading feature of the ecclesiastical situation in 



14 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [408 

America in the early eighteenth eentiny. The period saw 
the highest point in numerical strength which Quakerism 
reached in America as well as in England, and it saw also 
the most important strides taken by the Church of England 
in the colonies between the Restoration and the Declara- 
tion of Independence. Successful attempts were made to 
establish Episcopacy by law in several colonies, and Angli- 
can churches, the result of missionary enterprise, sprang 
up in the whole line of English settlements from New 
England to the West Indies. 

While the other nonconformists were relatively 
stronger in the colonies than in England, they were, as in 
the mother countrj^, less influential on the whole than the 
Society of Friends. The various sects had little or no 
official support from parent groups at home and were even 
more disunited than they. Of these the Presbyterians 
were to be found in no great numbers as yet for the chief 
Presbyterian immigration, that from Scotland and Ireland, 
belongs to a later period. The Baptists of the colonies 
were more closely allied with the Quakers than with either 
Congregationalists or Presbyterians, for their insistence on 
the separation of church and state placed them at odds 
with the nonconforming established churches of Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut. The latter, which called themselves 
Congregational but were usually known as Presbyterian 
or Independent, had drifted so far from any corresponding 
group in England that they were looked upon rather un- 
sympathetically by English nonconformists, especially be- 
cause of the extremes in ecclesiastical legislation of which 
both colonies were guilty. 

The weakening of the tie between the nonconformists 
of England and New England had come gradually and 
through no voluntary act on the part of either. It had 
come in spite of a friendly intercourse between the leaders 
on the two sides of the Atlantic. Increase Mather was as 
closely associated with the nonconformists of England as 
with those of his native land; many of the New England 
ministers of 1700 had visited England or corresponded 



469] INTRODUCTION 15 

with nonconformists at home and the works of English 
divines were read eagerly in Massachusetts. One primary 
cause for the independent growth of the churches of New 
England was the lack of a central organization binding 
them to the churches of the mother country, as existed in 
the case of the Anglican and Quaker bodies. Founded 
independently by the two branches of English dissent, the 
Nonconformists proper and the more radical Independents, 
the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth had kept 
in close touch with the English Puritans through the Civil 
War and Commonwealth periods because of their common 
cause at a stirring time. Only with the Restoration came 
the dissolution of the bond of interest that united New 
England with nonconformity at home, and in view of the 
lack of a governing system held in common, it is small 
wonder that the two divisions fell gradually apart. There 
was no longer the exciting interest in a great common 
cause, an interest stimulated by the conditions in the last 
years of Charles I's reign; nor was there the common ex- 
citement which belonged to the period of the Civil War in 
England when many of the New England Puritans re- 
turned to enter the army. 

From the Restoration on the nonconformists of Eng- 
land and New England had diverse interests and developed 
differently. On the Massachusetts shore the two Puritan 
colonies grew more and more closely together and worked 
out a system of church and state government which drew 
inspiration from both Plymouth and the Bay. At the time 
of the province charter, which joined Plymouth to its larger 
neighbor, the final compromise was effected and the two 
systems merged into one. This w^as the basis of Massa- 
chusetts ecclesiasticism in the eighteenth century. At the 
same time the aggression of outside forces was helping to 
weld together more firmly the members of the "standing 
order." Such was the coming of the Quakers with the 
conversion to Quakerism of many persons of the Massa- 
chusetts towns who had already given evidence of a varying 
form of theology. A little later the recognition of the 



16 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [470 

Church of England worship in Boston, in James II's reign, 
tended to increase that rigidity in theology and ecclesiasti- 
cisni which was a characteristic of the second and third 
generations of New England nonconformity. This devel- 
opment in Massachusetts failed to attract much attention 
from the English nonconformists who would not have been 
very sympathetic toward it ; and conditions in England, al- 
ready described, were in the meantime holding their atten- 
tion and giving them interests which made little appeal to 
New England Congregationalism. The discussion con- 
nected with the comprehension bill emphasized distinctions 
between Anglican and Puritan which New England had 
taken for granted and had no desire to minimize. The 
reactionary legislation of Queen Anne's reign did not 
extend to the colonies. The anti-Trinitarian movement, 
which convulsed England in the early eighteenth century, 
bad no great effect in New England until almost a century 
later. From these ecclesiastical and theological contests 
waged in England during the reign of William and Mary 
and that of Anne New England Congregationalism was 
therefore well nigh free, and in proportion to this freedom 
it hardened and narrowed, drawing apart and caring little 
for the constantly developing and increasingly liberal 
dissent of England. 

In spite of this failure on the part of New England 
nonconformity to maintain a close union with the dissent- 
ers in England, the strength of the state church in both 
Connecticut and Massachusetts was such that Quakerism 
made but sliglit inroads in the former and in the latter was 
pushed out into the border counties. For this reason the 
Church of England, when planted in Connecticut, was 
facing not the Quakers but rather the strongly established 
Congregational system. Massachusetts, on the other hand, 
offers the unique case of a three-cornered combat in which 
the two bodies which possessed most vigorous support at 
home and were victorious, one or the other, in most of the 
middle and southern colonies, were here outnumbered and 
long defied. Their adversaries, the Congregationalists, 



471] INTRODUCTION ^^ 

while not receiving systematic, organized help from a 
parent group abroad, were so united and so rigid that for 
a long time they were able to deny any concessions. 

Altho the New England nonconformists were not 
receiving direct aid from the dissenting bodies in England 
they were supported indirectly by William's government. 
The Massachusetts province charter itself indicated the 
extent to which sympathy might be expected from this 
Dutch Protestant ruler who was frankly disappointed in 
the failure of the comprehension bill and in his inability 
to do better for the English nonconformists than to secure 
the Toleration Act. The new charter, the work of Increase 
Mather, under the authority of William, specified that 
liberty of conscience should be allowed throughout the 
province, and no special recognition of the Church of 
England was demanded. It failed therefore to support 
the encroachments of Episcopacy which had appeared in 
the previous decade, aided by Randolph and Andros. The 
next few years saw the allowance by the king in council 
of Massachusetts legislation which practically renewed the 
ecclesiastical system of the seventeenth century. While to 
a certain extent continuing the methods of the Stuarts in 
dealing with political and economic problems in New Eng- 
land, William was not ready to make great use of the 
English Church as an agent in accomplishing his object. 

The opposition to the established church of Massachu- 
setts which had been opened by the intruders of the mid- 
seventeenth century was renewed soon after 1691 and now 
had an altered basis for attack in the terms of tlie new 
charter. The Quakers were the first to enter the conflict, 
drafting appeals to the governor and to the Friends of 
London before the S. P. G. had even been organized. They 
were regularly supported by the Baptist churches of the 
province, but the assistance thus given them was meager, 
as the r»aptists were not a numerous sect in New England 
until after the religious revival of the middle of the century 
known as the Great Awakening. The Anglican invasion 
of Massachusetts, pushed forward after the founding of 



18 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [472 

the S. p. G., was an important factor in the progress toward 
the new era, but was less effective than the Quaker move- 
ment for reasons that will appear. The work of Anglican 
and Quaker, while slow and diflficult, was aided by the low 
condition of spiritual vitality which New England experi- 
enced in the years immediately preceding the Great Awak- 
ening. The very absence of spiritual vigor demanded many 
laws to enforce customs which were now tending to lapse, 
as the people were no longer interested in maintaining the 
old standards. The elaborate ecclesiastical structure reared 
in order to meet the situation was artificial, and had no 
strength of its own to resist continued pressure upon it. 

The nature of this artificial structure and the scheme 
of attack made against it by outside forces will be treated 
in the following discussion. As a study of institutions it 
places some emphasis upon the actual constitution of the 
Massachusetts church town at the highest point of its 
development and just before its disintegration began. As 
a study of English influence on colonial life it pays some 
attention to the political and religious forces at work in 
England to show what part they played in the events 
which occurred in Massachusetts. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Ecclesiastical System op Provincial 
Massachusetts. 

The provinee of Massachusetts Bay offers an unusual 
field for the study of contending religious forces in Amer- 
ica in the early eighteenth century. Against a stronghold 
of rigid church establishment, in the hands of nonconform- 
ists, 'two religious bodies, Anglican and Quaker, contended 
for years Avith little apparent effect but with ultimate suc- 
cess. In so doing they gradually broke down the Massa- 
chusetts ecclesiastical system which had come into being 
in the seventeenth century, had withstood the attacks of 
Antinomians, Baptists and early Quakers, had lapsed dur- 
ing the Andros regime but was later revived under the 
province charter. In elaborateness of detail and rigid 
formality the system reached its highest development in 
the first' quarter of the eighteenth century, in the years 
when organized attacks upon it caused it to draw its mantle 
of exclusiveness more closely, and before the attacking 
forces had begun to gain their demands. It Avas, therefore, 
under the provincial government and not during the colo- 
nial period that this eminence was attained, a fact surpris- 
ing in view of the many ways in which the province charter 
created a new era. 

Postponing for the moment a consideration of the 
structure of the Massachusetts system as it was formed in 
the seventeenth century and hardened in the early eight- 
eenth, let us examine the status of the man who did not 
sympathize with the existing order in the period before the 
provincial government. Perfect sympathy, as expressed 
in church membership, was required as a qualification for 
admission to the privileges of the body politic under the 
first charter, and an increasing majority of the inhabitants 

19 



20 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [474 

of the colony were thus excluded from the franchise in 
spite of the results of the half-way covenant. Actual hos- 
tility, such as appeared in the views of certain dissenting 
sects which had crept in, was the attitude which the perse- 
cuting laws of the seventeenth century were framed to 
meet. Permitted more and more to lapse, these laws 
became a dead letter with the abrogation of the charter and 
under the governments which immediately succeeded. In 
the commission by which James II constituted a president 
and council for Massachusetts Bay, a "liberty of con- 
science" was ordered to "be allowed unto all persons," the 
Church of England to be "particularly countenanced and 
encouraged."^ While the Churchmen of Boston, under the 
leadership of Randolph and Mason, the only Anglicans on 
the council, failed to make hoped-for headway, the New 
England Quakers were recording their appreciation of the 
changed conditions when they met in the summer of 1686. 
"We enjoy outward Peace at present," they wrote to the 
London Yearly Meeting, "the parsecuting spirits being 
under contemp themselves, and much awed by the present 
Power in England, so that we enjoy our Meetings Peace- 
ably."2 The injunctions issued to Dudley, when repeated 
in the Andros commission,^ resulted in very unusual con- 
cessions which were allowed to both of these hostile bodies. 
The progress which was made by the Episcopal group in 
Boston was among the causes of the attempt to regain the 
charter, as well as of the revolt against authority in 1689 ; 
the other religious sects were well satisfied in finding 

15 Mass. Hist. Colls., IX, 150. 

-Epistles Received, I, 19. A letter written to London later in the same 
year expresses more strikingly the same idea. "Them that were secure 
and had made their nests in the Stars, are now in some measure brought 
to the Dust ; their Dagon is fallen, and their Arke is taken, And now are 
crying whose sorrows are like ours : This we see is the Lords doings, 
and it appears Marvellous to many, that in the Bloody Town of Boston, 
and other places where Friends were a hising and by work among them : 
have now Equal privilege with their persecutors, by reason of the Kings 
indulgence for Liberty of Conscience." Ibid., I, 2i. 

33 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 147-148. 



475] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 21 

themselves for the time being relieved from taxation for the 
support of the Congregational system.^ 

While the towns in general went back to their former 
methods w^hen the old order was resumed in 1689, its basis 
was entirely altered when the new charter wxnt into effect 
two years later. Provisions regarding the relation of 
church and state are conspicuously lacking in this docu- 
ment, and because no special prohibition was there laid 
down it was possible for the General Court to renew the 
ecclesiastical framework of the seventeenth century with- 
out exceeding the law. The only limitation appeared in a 
clause which stated that 

for the greater Ease and Encouragement of Our Loveing Subjects Inhab- 
iting our said Province or Territory of the Massachusetts Bay and of 
such as come to Inhabit there Wee doe by these presents for Our heires 
and Successors Grant Establish and Ordaine that for ever hereafter there 
shall be a liberty of Conscience allow^ed in the Worshipp of God to all 
Christians (Except Papists) Inhabiting or which shall inhabit or be resi- 
dent within our said Province or Territory.^ 

Later controversy raised a storm over the meaning of 
"liberty of conscience ... in the Worshipp of God." 
Examined in the light of events in England at the opening 
of William's reign and of conditions prevailing in Massa- 
chusetts during the years of the Dominion of New England, 
the meaning is obvious. As an echo of the Toleration Act 
the province charter was attempting to bring the noncon- 
formists of New England a full assurance that they should 
suffer no interference in their method of worship by the 
state church of England. It was therefore in accordance 
with one of the special requests submitted by Increase 
Mather. Further than this it gave assurance to the sev- 
eral dissenting sects in Massachusetts that the general tol- 

^The London Yearly Meeting, recognizing the opportunity afforded 
by the appointment of Andros, had urged the New England Quakers to 
appeal to him, and the latter answered with the report that upon applica- 
tion he "has taken off that oppression and Yoak that Friends were under 
for Maintenance of Ministers so called : And Friends have a good Interest 
in him : and he is very kind & Curteous to us." Epistles Received, I, 
58-59. See also Palfrey, New England, III, 522. A Quaker petition bear- 
ing on this matter in an individual case appears in Mass. Archives, XI, 40. 

^Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 14. 



22 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [476 

eration which they had attained by the end of the colonial 
period should be continued. 

Neither the hierarchy of Massachusetts nor the dis- 
senter was satisfied that the interpretation should stop 
here. The hierarchy found expression for its view in the 
laws for "maintaining religion" which renewed the old 
ecclesiastical system; the scattered representatives of the 
other sects denounced such action as an infringement of 
the same clause. The view of the elder Mather appears in 
the election sermon which he preached in 1693. 

Your religion is secured to you, [he announced.] Now you need not fear 
being sent to Prison (as some of you were under a late Government) 
because you scruple Swearing by a Book. You may Worship God in the 
greatest Purity, and no one may disturb you. If you set apart Daies for 
Solemn Praier or Praises, as the Divine Providence may call thereunto, 
you need not fear being interrupted or Obstructed therein as it was here 
six years ago. You may by laws not only Protect, but encourage that 
Religion which is the General Profession of the Country.^ Religion is 
forever secured, [repeated his son,] a righteous and generous liberty of 
conscience established. And the General Assembly may, by their acts, 
give a distinguishing encouragement unto that religion which is the gen- 
eral profession of the inhabitants.'^ 

The policy here recommended was hardly expressed in 
public law before the opposing forces were announcing 
their interpretation of libert^^ of conscience. A Quaker 
appeal of 1702, complaining of taxes for the ministry, 
begged for a "Liberty of Conscience in the Exercise of 
Religion as a Priviledge granted by their Majestyes Char- 
ter/'^ and later petitions to the provincial assembly and to 
the crown repeated over and over the same idea. To favor 
one system of theology and church practices, taxing all 
persons for the support of the favored method, was looked 
upon by those not in sympathy with the establishment as 
an infringement of the charter.^ Many years later Isaac 

*I. Mather, The Great Blessing of Primitive Counsellours, 21. 

■^C. Mather, Parentator, 141. 

^Bristol Sessions, I, 38. 

^The position is carefully taken in an elaborate representation to the 
crown from the Baptists of Rehoboth in 1715. 

"whereas King Charles the Second of happy memory. When Complaint 
was made unto his sacred Majestic of the Cruell abuses that his Loyall 



477] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 23 

Backus, the Baptist historian, in critical comment on 
Cotton Mather, made the assertion that for the General 
Assembly to "give a distinguishing encouragement" unto 
a certain form of religion was nothing less than to "em- 
power some to judge for others about worship, and to 
enforce their judgments with the sword; which is the 
root of the worst persecution in the world."^*^ These two 
conflicting opinions in regard to the meaning of the char- 
ter and the rights of the dissenting sects in the province 
became the basis of the struggle which continued through 
a large part of the eighteenth century. 

In pursuance of the Mather theory that laws might 
be passed for the encouragement of that form of religion 
which received popular favor, the General Court began to 
put once more into operation the system for financial 
support for the orthodox ministers of the towns which, so 
far as it was a matter regulated by the central authority, 
had recently lapsed. In Boston no difficulty had been 
occasioned because of the long standing custom of sup- 
porting ministers by voluntary contributions.^^ In the 

subjects met with all in the Massathusetts Collony in New England, 
Namely, the Baptists, and the Quakers, and that from the Independant 
and Presbiterian parties, and that upon the Account of Religion, Some 
they Severely fined, some weer Cruelly punished, and put to Death, he 
Did quickly put a Stop to their Tirannie and Enlarged the Libertye of his 
poor Distressed subjects, to his Immortal hor^our, Granting Libertye of 
Conscience in the Worship of God to all his g6od Subjects in this Prov- 
ince which we Enjoyed allsoe in the Reign of King James the Second, 
and Confirmed by King William the third and Queen Mary, By Charter 
for the Better Encourageing of there Subjects in New England, 
and when your Sacred Majestic Came to the throne you was pleased 
to Indulge the tender consciences of your good and Loyall subjects in 
this Province, for which we owe all true Allegiance to the Church of 
England for Ever, Yett notwithstanding it has been the Practice of many 
towns within this province, and Still is to Rate and make Distress Upon 
the Estates of men whoe Differr in Point of Worship, as the Case is with 
us in this town of Rehoboth." 5". P. G. Papers, B I, No. 169. 

i°Backus, Baptists, I, 446. 

"/W(f., I, 448. In "The Present State of New England", Randolph 
writes, "The Ministers in Boston are paid by a Collection weekly made in 
the several Congregations by the Elders, who give the Ministers what 



24 CHUKCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [478 

country, however, especially in towns least in sympathy 
with the state church, a real problem had presented itself, 
as the ministers had found themselves unable to collect 
their salaries.^- By a law of the 17th of June 1692, the 
preamble of which stated that 

several taxes or assessments, necessary for the support of the ministry 
and other public charges arising in the several counties and towns within 
this province, have been laid upon the inhabitants, and orderly committed 
to the constables or collectors by the selectmen or assessors in the several 
towns . . . and in many places remains uncollected, 

it was ordered that the constables and collectors be re- 
quired to collect all such rates and pay them to the county 
treasurer in each county or the selectmen in the town 
where they were made before the 10th of the following 
December. In any county or town where such taxes had 
been agreed on but not assessed, the selectmen of the sev- 
eral towns were ordered to make such rates and commit 
them to the constables to be collected in the same 
manner. ^^ 

Toward the end of the same year came the first of the 
acts "for the settlement and support of ministers and 
schoolmasters" under the provincial government, differing 
only slightly from seventeenth century legislation on the 
same subject. Each town in the province was ordered to 
take due care to be provided with an "able, learned ortho- 
dox minister or ministers, of good conversation," the same 
to be suitably maintained by the inhabitants of the town. 
If the inhabitants failed to make a contract, then, upon 
complaint to the quarter sessions of the peace for the 
county, the latter was empowered "to order a competent 

they think fitt, but in other Towns they have a settled maintenance by a 
rate laid upon every Inhabitant, & houses are provided for them." Perry, 
Ch. Docs., Mass., 6. "In some Churches, the Salary of the Minister is 
raised by a Voluntary contribution; especially in populous Places, and 
where many Strangers resort." C. Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 20. 

^-"Discoragmts upon the hearts of the ministers increase by reason 
that a licentious people take the advantage of a liberty to withold main- 
tenance from them." Samuel Willard to Increase Mather, 10 July, 1688, 
4 Mass. Hist. Colls., VIII, 571, Mather Papers. 

^^Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 28. 



479] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 25 

allowance unto such minister according to the estate and 
the ability of the town; the same to be assessed upon the 
inhabitants by warrant from the court, directed by the 
selectmen," who were then to assess the same and cause 
it to be levied by the constables. The act further provided 
that in case a town was without a minister for six months 
the court of quarter sessions should order such town to 
provide itself immediately ; and in case it failed to do so, 
the court should procure and settle a minister there "and 
order the charge thereof and of such minister's maintain- 
ance to be levied upon the inhabitants of such town." So 
far no new theory was involved but in the fourth section 
appeared a new principle. Under the colonial government 
it had been customary for the members of a church to elect 
the man who should become their minister ; but as church 
members only could become freemen and hence voters in 
town affairs, this was practically equivalent to the election 
of a minister by the town in those towns of the province 
which still had but one church. That it was looked upon 
in this way is probable from the fact that the new law 
ordered that a minister should b^! chosen by the major part 
of the inhabitants of a town in town meeting; and that the 
whole town should then be obliged to pay towards his set- 
tlement and maintenance.^^ Iminediately there arose a 
difficulty, for the new charter had done away with the old 
church membership qualification for voting and had sub- 
stituted a property basis which, /now applied, meant that 
a far larger group of people than the members of a church 
would be electing its minister.^^ Further than this it 
failed to satisfy the conditions existing when there was 
more than one church in a town, particularly true of Bos- 
ton where even the provision in regard to maintenance was 

^^Ibid., I, 62. 

^•"•"That the world would soon have power over the church." Isaac 
Backus to Jedediah Morse, 9 March, 1791. Backus Papers (New England 
Bap. Hist. Soc), Portfolio 42. Cf. the Massachusetts state constitution 
of 1780 which again introduced this method, thereby causing difficulties 
at the time of the Unitarian movement which hastened the separation of 
church and state. 



26 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [480 

a dead letter because of the well established method of 
voluntary contributions to which the Boston churches 
were accustomed. 

Before dissatisfaction with these provisions had 
caused any change in legislation, the General Court con- 
tinued its supervision of ministerial support in an act for 
regulating townships and town officers. It was enacted (16 
November, 1692) that the selectmen or townsmen should 
assess the inhabitants and other residents of a town and 
the lands and estates lying within its bounds to all town 
charges ordered by the inhabitants in town meeting "for 
the maintenance and support of the ministry, schools, the 
poor, and for the defraying of other necessary charges 
arising within the said town," the constable or constables 
thereupon to levy and collect such assessments, 

and to make distress upon all such [as] [who] shall [neglect or] refuse to 
make payment. And for want of goods or chattels whereon to make 
distress, to seize the person and commit him to the common goal of the 
county, there to remain until he pay the sum upon him assessed as afore- 
said, unless the same, or any part thereof, upon application made unto the 
quarter sessions, shall be abated. 

A penalty of five pounds was then declared for refusing to 
take the oath when duly chosen to serve in the office of 
constable, and in case the delinquent constable refused to 
pay this fine, it was to be levied by distress and sale of his 
goods, the overplus returned.^^ 

Meanwhile, the unsatisfactory provisions of the act 
for the settlement and support of ministers was causing 
annoyance, and to dispel it an act was passed on February 
17, 1693, to explain and alter some of its clauses. The new 
law repealed the fourth section of the older one and gave 
each church power to choose its own minister with the re- 
striction that this act of the church to be valid must be 
concurred in by "the major part of such inhabitants as do 
there usually attend on the publick worship of God, and 
are by law duly qualified for voting in town affairs. "^"^ 

^^Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 6S. 

^^More simply this expression might read, "the majority of the towns- 
men qualified to vote in town meeting," — for it was in town meeting that 
the matter was decided. By "Such inhabitants as do there usually attend" 



481] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 27 

The clause allowing for liis settlement and support was 
made more explicit, ordering that whether it be an incor- 
porated town or merely a "part of a town, or a place lim- 
ited by law for upholding the publick worship of God, all 
the inhabitants, and rateable estates lying within" it should 
be obliged to pay in proportion. In the case of Boston an 
exception was made in both of these matters and this town 
was allowed to continue its "accustomed method and prac- 
tice," each church responsible for the choice of its minister, 
and his support dependent upon the voluntary contribu- 
tions of its adherents. In dealing with defective towns the 
second law was much more definite and went farther. 
Where a town neglected its duty in regard to maintenance 
of the ministry, the court of quarter sessions, upon com- 
plaint, should summon the selectmen or other assessors 
and impose a fine upon them 

■not exceeding forty shillings each person for the first offense ; and upon 
a second conviction of such neglect to impose a fine of four pounds upon 
each person; and the like sum of four pounds for every after conviction; 
such fines to be levied by distress and sale of the offender's goods (re- 
turning the overplus if any be).^^ \ 

Such definite measures as these were the result of new con- 
ditions created by the provisions of the province charter. 
With the merging of Plymouth! Colony in Massachusetts 
there came under the Boston government three new coun- 
ties, in each of which were towns that for thirty years had 

is meant the persons w^ho are included in the precinct, whether church 
members or not, and who would be eicpected to attend at that meeting. 
Nowhere is the exact situation, when finally developed, more clearly stated 
than in Ratio Disciplinae, 15-16. Mather here says that after the church 
members have voted to call a certain minister, they "have a Meeting with 
the other Inhabitants of their Neighborhood, who are not yet arrived into 
the State of Communicants,When they do all together put it unto the Vote, 
Whether they have no Objection against the Choice of Mr. A. B. to be 
ihe Minister of the Place; but shall concurr, to support him in the Exer- 
cise of his Ministry. 

Except the Major-Part of the Inhabitants (inclusive of the Commu- 
nicants) do agree to this latter Vote, the Act of the Church, does not in 
the Law, make the whole Taxable in the Maintenance of the Minister, 
which the Church doth chuse." 

'^^Mass. Prov. Laws,!, 102; Backus, Baptists, I, 448. 



28 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [482 

been establishing independent religious services recognized 
by their own town government and resisting the Plymouth 
General Court. To provide against this state of affairs 
among the Baptists and Quakers of Buzzards Bay, Cape 
Cod, and the Rhode Island border was the chief purpose 
of the ecclesiastical legislation of Massachusetts for the 
next thirty-five years. 

The law just quoted went into effect in the winter of 
1693. One year from the following May, at the time of 
meeting of the general assembly of Massachusetts Bay, 
when, as was customary, the ministers of the province were 
assembled in their annual convention at Boston,^^ they 
framed a memorial to present to the General Court de- 
scribing certain difficulties w^hich some of their number 
were experiencing under the existing legislation. 

Inasmuch as destitute Churches are plunged into Extreame Difficultys, 
[ran this memorial,] in their Election & settlement of Ministers by ye 
Opposition wo their Acts find from ye Non-concurrence of ye other Inhab- 
itants in their Towns, It is requested that ye Late Act of ye Generall 
Court referring thereunto, may be Explained, with an Additional Clause, 
•Declaring, what shall bee done by Churches, In Case ye other Inhabitants 
in a Town Oppose their Acts in ye Calling of a Minister, without giving 
Satisfactory Reasons for their Non-concurrence. 

It was suggested that the inhabitants of the town might in 
such a case call a council of representatives from several 
other churches who should consider the question under 
discussion, and in case of agreement with church rather 
than town could annul the vote of the town meeting. The 
charges arising from the entertainment of such a council 
should be paid by a levy upon the whole town.^'^ No law 
to this effect was passed in this session, but in the following 
year the ministers again reminded the court of the "many 
parts of the Country which from year to year live without 
any settled Ministry," and urged that "This Hona Court 
would take it into their Consideration whether a Commit- 
tee may not be appointed ... to Tender fit Methods for 
the Establishment of the Christian Religion in those 

i^Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 467-469; 
Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 176-177. 
^^Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 537. 



483] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 29 

places."-^ The court now took action. On June 13, 1695, 
the substance of the memorial of 1694 became law in so 
far as it provided for the calling of a council "consisting 
of the elders and messengers of three or five neighboring 
churches" in case of the non-concurrence in the church's 
act by the town.^^ It did however suggest the possibility 

^^Mass. Archives, XI, 90. 

2-"In Case of a Difiference between the Church and the Inhabitants 
on this Occasion," Mather writes, "the Law provides the Remedy of a 
Council, from three Neighbour Churches, to decide. Whether the In- 
habitants ought to acquiesce in the Choice, zvherein the Church has gone 
before them. 

Tho' the Latu of the Place, about the Chusing and Settling of a Min- 
ister, (which has had the Royal Sanction) be a very wholesome Law, and 
have much of the Gospel in it, yet there grows too much upon the Inhab- 
itants, who are not yet come into the Communion of the Churches, a 
Disposition to supersede it, and over-rule it; Many People would not 
allow the Church any Priviledge to go before them, in the Choice of a 
Pastor. The Clamour is, We must maintain him!" 

Mather next quotes "Some of our Divines" who say, " 'A Body of 
Christians, Associated for all the Ordinances of the Gospel, are a 
CHURCH of our Glorious LORD, which have among other precious 
Priviledges, a RIGHT from HIM, To chuse their own Pastors. 

To introduce a Practice in the Choice of a Pastor, which, being fol- 
lowed, may soon bring a Pastor to be chosen for a Church, which few, 
yea, none of the Church have ever Voted for, would be to Betray and 
even Destroy a most Valuable TiTGHT, that such a Society has a Claim 
unto, and many evil Consequences are to be expected from it. 

Nevertheless a CHURCH, in the Exercise of its RIGHT, ought in 
all possible Ways, consistent therewithal, to consult the Edification and 
Satisfaction of their Neighbours, especially of those, on whose Assistance, 
to carry on their Affairs, they may have mucli Dependence. 

The Church ought to so manage their Choice, that, if the Neighbours 
have any just Dissatisfaction, all the Respect, required by Scripture, Rea- 
son, and Gratitude, may be paid unto it.' " 

Mather finally adds, "To express the Condescention, in the close of 
these Conclusions, the Churches, do sometimes, by their Vote, make a 
Nomination of Three or Four Candidates ; For every One of which the 
Majority of the Brethren have so Voted, that whomsoever of these the 
Choice falls upon, it may still be said, The Church has Chosen him. 
And then they bring this Nomination unto the other Inhabitants, to join 
with them in a Vote, that shall determine, which of them shall be the 
Man." Ratio Disciplinae, 16-18. 



30 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [484 

of this council's favoring the town's choice rather than that 
of the church by ordering that in this case the church 
should "proceed to the election of another minister;" con- 
cerning the expenses of the council it failed to take any 
action Avhatever.-^ 

Two years later came a law regarding town rates 
which rounded out this early legislation dealing with the 
settlement and support of the ministry. Since certain 
constables and collectors of town rates had proved defect- 
ive and negligent of duty, it was enacted that in case they 
failed to issue their accounts with the town treasurer by 
the time prefixed in their warrants, they should be "lyable 
to the action or suite of the treasurer" of the town who 
might "sue for and recover all such rates and assessments, 
or any arrears thereof, of and from those constables or 
collectors."24 

From the foregoing laws may be outlined briefly the 
workings of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system at the 
beginning of the provincial period, reproducing as closely 
as possible the system developed in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Three governmental bodies w^ere concerned with the 
church as related to the state, — the town meeting, the court 
of quarter sessions of the county, and the Massachusetts 
General Court. The legislative body passed the ecclesias- 
tical laws ordering that each town be provided with a 
minister and that he should be supported by public taxa- 
tion in that town, his salary to be collected by the consta- 
ble or collector with the other town rates. The General 
Court also made it the duty of the court of quarter sessions 
to make sure that these laws were put into execution. 
Towns which failed to supply themselves with ministers 
were to be supplied and selectmen or assessors who failed 
to assess the rates might be prosecuted by this court. 
Lastly the town itself played an all important part in this 
system, for it bore the financial burden entailed and was 

'^Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 216; Backus, Baptists, I, 455. 
'*Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 276. 



485] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 31 

responsible for ratifying the choice of a minister made by 
the church members. 

The laws of 1693 and 1695 offered a clear program for 
dealing with normal towns in their relation to the church, 
minister and support of religious worship. There had, 
however, already begun to appear that undercurrent of 
determination to manage effectively the communities 
where a large number of dissenters to the standing order 
prevented a willing support of the system. Trouble with 
them continued, and an act of 1702 for the first time stated 
the case by saying that 

in some few towns and districts within this province, divers of the inhab- 
litants are Quakers, and other irreligious persons averse and opposite to 
the publick worship of God, and to a learned orthodox ministry, and find 
out ways to elude the laws provided for the support of such, and prevent 
the good intentions thereof, to the encouragement of irreligion and pro- 
faneness. 

The law of 1692 for the fining of delinquent selectmen or 
assessors was now re-enacted with the further provision 
that the court of general sessions might in their places 
appoint "three or more suflflcient freeholders within the 
same county, to assess and apportion the sum agreed or 
set for the yearly support and maintenance of such minis- 
ter," which would then be passed with a warrant for its 
collection by two justices of the peace to the constables of 
the town to collect the amount and pay to the minister, 
the constables who failed of a due execution of such war- 
rant to "incur the like pains, penalties and forfeitures as 
for not collecting and paying in any other rate or assess- 
ment to them committed." The court of general sessions 
was also to order a recompense to the assessors for this 
purpose appointed out of the fines set upon the delinquent 
selectmen or assessors, the remainder to go to the county.^^ 
For the next few years following this enactment the 
court of general sessions for Bristol County found such 
determined resistance to this legislation in the Quaker 
towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton that the legislative body 

^^Ibid., I, 505. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the Bishop of 
London to secure the disallowance of this act by the crown. Ibid., I, 509. 



32 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [486 

of the province was forced to come to its aid with the act 
of November 14, 1706. The justices of the general sessions 
of the peace were ordered, at the opening of their court, to 
give special charge to the grand jury to make presentment 
of all towns and districts Avithin the county destitute of a 
minister or failing to provide for his support, and upon 
such presentment to put into execution vigorously the laws 
relating to neglects of this kind. If their orders were then 
eluded by the towns concerned, the justices were to make 
report of their proceedings at the next meeting of the Gen- 
eral Court. Upon receipt of this report the General Court 
of the province should take upon itself the care of securing 
a minister for such town or district, and provide for his 
maintenance. The course by which the latter was to be 
obtained carried the prerogative of the provincial govern- 
ment in ecclesiastical matters to the highest point which 
It ever dared assume. It was to add so much to the pro- 
portion of such town or district in the public taxes as 
might be deemed sufficient for that end, these additional 
sums to be assessed, collected, and paid into the public 
treasury, together with the other public taxes, to be drawn 
out by warrant from the governor by and with the advice 
and consent of the council and duly paid to the minister 
concerned.^*^ On December 20, 1715, this law was re- 
enacted with the further provision that the general assem- 
bly in procuring a minister for a destitute town or pre- 
cinct must find one who was recommended by three or 
more settled, ordained ministers.-^ This law was re-en- 
acted July 5, 1722.28 

In the meantime a series of enactments dealing with 
assessing and collecting of town taxes, especially where 
more than one precinct made up the town, modified the 
methods by which the minister's rate was gathered. The 
privileges and rights of the "precinct" as a distinct church- 
state were rapidly becoming crystallized. In 1702 such a 

-^Ibid., I, 595. 

-''Ibid.. II, 26; Backus, Baptists, 482. 

^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 243. 



487] MASSACHUSETTS ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM 33 

district or precinct was empowered to appoint a clerk 
(corresponding to town clerk) and separate assessors for 
raising a maintenance for its minister, as well as to make 
out a warrant "in form as by law prescribed for town 
rates or assessments, directed to the constables of the town 
or district, for the collecting and levying of the same." 
In case the assesors so appointed refused or neglected to 
perform their duty the selectmen of the town from which 
such a district or precinct was set off were required to 
assess the inhabitants of the sum set for the maintenance 
of the minister thereof.-^ This law, extending only to the 
sums agreed on for the support of the ministry, was ex- 
tended in 1718 so as to include charges for the building 
and repairing of meeting houses.^^ 

The existence of assessors apart from the selectmen 
was arranged by law, for the assessing of the province rate, 
as early as 1700,^^ and in 1707 they were ordered to assess 
county and town taxes as well, the duties of the selectmen 
becoming thus limited. Each town was also given option 
in the choice of a collector distinct from the constable to col- 
lect town and county charges as lie already gathered the 
country rate.^- In 1710 the idea was repeated more 
definitely, tlio the duty remained optional, and was applied 
to precincts as well as towns.^^ The re-enactment of this 
law in 1720 included a penalty for failure to serve. Anyone 
who refused to accept this unsought oflflce or neglected to 

^^Ibid., I, 505. 

^^Ibid., II, 99, ch. i, 19 June, 1718; Backus, Baptists, I, 499. 

^^Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 406, ch. 26, 20 March, 1700. 

"-Ibid., I, 606, ch. 2, II June, 1707. The ministry rate seems to have 
been assessed separately under ordinary circumstances, "But," said Mather, 
"Where Quakerism is troublesome, some Towns are so wise to involve 
the Salary of the Ministry in a general Rate for all Tozvn Charges, and 
so the Cavils of those, who would else refuse to pay the Rate for the 
Ministry, are obviated." Ratio Disciplinae, 22. "They have the Year past 
brought in another of their Ministers into this town of Rehoboth wherein 
we Dwell and have Rated us to him allso mixing up both his and their 
other ministers Rate with the town Debts." Representation from the 
Baptists of Rehoboth, i Jan., 1714/15, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 169. 

"^Mass. Prov. Lazvs, I, 653, ch. 5, 28 June, 1710. 



34 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [488 

take the oath was to be fined three pounds ; and if he refused 
to pay his fine he was to suffer the same prosecution as one 
refusing to serve in the office of constable.^^ 

Such is a brief outline of the legislation of the early 
Massachusetts Bay Province relating to the state church 
and its maintenance. Starting with the system already 
worked out in the seventeenth century, the General Court 
was forced to modify the old plan when it found that its 
orders went unheeded. The state church of Massachusetts 
was in the first instance a distinctly local affair, the town 
playing the chief part, the county giving assistance and 
the General Court acting principally as the source of 
authority. Variations from the normal in certain parts of 
the enlarged province caused a change which brought the 
legislative body into closer relation with the individual 
towns and caused it to assert a greater authority over 
them. After giving the county court very special powers 
and seeing them eluded, the General Court entered the 
breach, and endowed itself with the power to secure a 
minister where one was lacking and to pay his salary 
from the public treasury, adding such sum to the town's 
province rate. In this and in other instances the General 
Court came to play a very prominent part in the church 
life of the town. Before examining further the eract na- 
ture of the Massachusetts church town and its intimate 
relation to the county court and to the general assembly 
of tlie province, a short study will be made of the opposing 
elements in the ecclesiastical life of the province, which 
will throw further light on the laws above enumerated and 
explain the changes which occurred. While the principle 
of the Massachusetts system remained in force for more 
than a hundred years longer, its claim to complete author- 
ity was broken down at the beginning of the second quar- 
ter of the eighteenth century. We shall deal with the 
external causes and the nature of the change which the old 
system suffered. 

^^Ibid., II, i8i, ch. 6, 29 Nov., 1720. 



CHAPTER III. 

Opposing Elements. 

By the year 1700 New England had lost much of the 
homogeneity which in the period of settlement had been 
possessed by the two larger colonies. In religious matters 
its inhabitants represented a fair sweep of opinion altho 
as yet they were all alike dissenters to the Church of Eng- 
land except the small body of worshippers at King's Chapel 
in Boston.^ Rhode Island, extending toleration as it had 
from the first to all sects, and hence including several thou- 
sand persons of various creeds, was under a Quaker gov- 
ernment,^ and the prestige which this fact gave to the sect 
reached well beyond its own borders. While Rhode Island 
had marched steadily onward in its theory of religious 
liberty, the case of Connecticut represented the opposite 
extreme. Here the strictness of early Calvinism had been 
modified far less than in Massachusetts Bay and, tho va- 
rious intruders had gained a foothold, they failed to thrive 
as in certain other parts of New England.^ Between these 

^"An Account of the State of Religion in the English Plantations in 
North America, by Col. Dudley, Governor of New England," Prot. Episc. 
Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xiv, v. 

-Samuel Cranston, elected governor in 1696 to succeed Walter Clarke, 
tho not himself a Quaker, was a nephew of Clarke and in sympathy with 
Quaker policy. Jones, Quakers, 199. 

^As a case in point may be mentioned the Rogerines of New London. 
Mass. Prov. Lotus, VIII, 155, ch. 102; 555. The Quakers made compara- 
tively little impression on Connecticut. Bownas, the Quaker preacher, 
who visited New England in 1702-1703, recorded that no meetings were 
held for two hundred miles in Connecticut, and remarked, "The People 
being mostly rigid Presbyterians, counted it to be a great Crime to be at 
a Quakers Meeting." Bownas, Life and Travels, 116. About the time 
that the Connecticut law against heretics was revived, John Fothergill 
wrote, "After staying a few Meetings on Long-Island we set out for 
New-England, having near two hundred Miles to travel by land through 
the Colony of Connecticut : in which Space there were few or no Friends, 

35 



36 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [490 

two positions Massachusetts was maintaining herself in a 
way that could not fail to become increasingly difficult. 
One problem had been presented to her by the annexation 
of New Hampshire and Maine towns which were communi- 
ties of a strikingly different character from those reared 
under her own theocratic system. These were settlements 
made by persons who were primarily interested in trade 
and commerce and careless of her dearest theories in regard 
to church and state. Tho a menace to theocratic govern- 
ment, the inhabitants were at least neutral regarding the 
spread of other denominations. With the merging of 
Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts a far more difficult 
problem was offered by the presence of a few Baptist 
churches and a number of Quaker communities which had 
not been effectively dealt with by Plymouth court, far 
more tolerant and less aggressive as it always was than 
the assembly of the old Bay Colony. 

Massachusetts at the time we are considering, includ- 
ing Maine and Plymouth, was made up of about eighty 
villages, scattered all the way from the fishing communities 
of the Maine coast, Falmouth and Scarboro, Wells, York 
and Kitterj^, to the settlements of Martha's Vineyard and 
Nantucket. Passing over a large section of rough hill 
country in the present county of Worcester, it likewise 
held possession of a number of promising towns in the 
Connecticut valley, closely related to the river towns of 
Connecticut. Starting at Springfield, settlers had pushed 
up the Connecticut and its branches until Northampton, 
Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield and Westfield had all come 
into existence as farming hamlets, forming the county of 
Hampshire. Just below the New Hampshire border lay the 
villages of Essex county, some of them among the earliest 
settled communities in the colony, yet sharing many of the 
same frontier and trading interests as their neighbors to 
the northward. Here were the coast towns of Salem, 



and the People generally very shy of us, and partly by reason of some 
severe Laws then in force there, they were afraid to converse with 
Friends." Fothergill, Life and Travels, 39. 



491] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 37 

Gloucester and Marblehead and the exposed settlements 
of Haverhill, Andover, Amesbury and Salisbury,^ Boston 
was the center of the thickly populated region of Suffolk 
and Middlesex counties, the former including the capital 
and the old towns to the southward, Roxbury, Dorchester 
and Milton, and farther toward Plymouth the early settle- 
ments of Weymouth and Braintree.^ Middlesex county, in 
covering a much larger area, contained some of the oldest 
places in the province, such as Cambridge, Charlestown, 
Newton and Watertown, and likewise another group of 
frontier communities requiring garrisons during the In- 
dian wars. Among these were Dunstable, Groton, Lancas- 
ter and Oxford.*' 

Of the three new counties which Plymouth had re- 
cently contributed, Plymouth county itself represented the 
town of Plymouth, its neighbor Scituate, the Quaker com- 
munities of Duxbury and Marshfield, and the town of 
Bridgewater. The broad sand dunes of Barnstable county 
boasted the Cape Cod villages of Barnstable, Eastham, 
Sandwich and Yarmouth, and the county of Bristol was 
made up of the six thriving towns of Taunton, Rehoboth, 
and Swansea, Dartmouth, Little Compton, and Bristol, 
with the less vigorous Freetown, Tiverton, and Attlebo- 
rough.''^ 

In many of the frontier villages and near some of the 
older towns as well were scattered numerous plantations of 
Indians whose conversion had been a matter of serious 
importance to the colony in earlier days and was later 
taken up by the province. Here were a number of native 
Indian preachers and these were assisted by such of the 

*The others represented in the Massachusetts General Court in 1700 
were Newbury, Beverly, Boxford, Ipswich, Lynn, Rowley, Topsfield and 
Wenham. 

^Also Dedham, Hingham and Medfield. 

^The list also included Billerica, Chelmsford, Concord, Marlborough, 
Maiden, Medford, Reading, Sherburne, Sudbury and Woburn. 

^Oldmixon, Brit. Emp. in Am., I, 81-88; Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 238. 
The eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, including Bristol, Tiverton and 
Little Compton, was later surrendered to Rhode Island. 



38 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [492 

regular ministers as were interested in visiting and preach- 
ing in this type of parish.^ Even the General Court took 
some limited measures for their evangelization.^ 

Of the organized towns of the province none lacked its 
regular minister except an occasional frontier community 
or the old settlements of Bristol county which were of a 
spirit definitely hostile to the purposes of the standing 
order. 

The situation in the town of Boston at the beginning 
of the eighteenth century was not typical of the church life 
of the province. There were in Boston in 1700 four Con- 
gregational churches : the old First, the Second, under the 
direction of the Mathers, the South Church under Mr. 
Willard, and the Brattle Street Church which, because it 
had been founded recently on a slightly broader basis of 
creed and platform, was still looked upon askance by the 
other churches.^*' The voluntary method of contributing 
to the support of church and minister had very early sep- 
arated church and state in the chief town of the colony, so 
far as this phase of the matter was concerned. Further 
than this the presence of three "dissenting meetings" in 
this town materially changed the effect which a uniformity 
in creed and service would have produced. ^^ The society 
of the French Protestants, organized in Boston in 1687, 
had little to do with the result, as the Calvinism of the 
Huguenots was sufficiently close to that of New England 
to make the Massachusetts ministers unusually cordial. 
There was even some special legislation in their favor and 
some definite financial support given them from the public 
treasury.^- It was the three "dissenting sects" of Baptists, 
Anglicans and Quakers which gave the religious life of 

^Typographus Lectori, with Joseph Baxter, Sermon, 89-98. 

^Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 254, ch. 45. 

i^Winsor, Boston, II, i88 et seq. 

^^Ibid., 192 et seq. 

^-Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 250, ch. 34, 29 June, 1700. Under the date 
of 8 Jan., 1686/87, Cotton Mather records in his diary, "I would show all 
the Kindness that I can, unto the French Refugees arrived in this Coun- 
try." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 134. 



493] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 39 

Boston so different a flavor from that of the other colonial 
towns. 

Of these three the Church of England was the first to 
receive recognition and permission to build a church in 
Boston. Orders came from Charles II to the Massachu- 
setts authorities that the right of using the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer should be denied to no one, and through 
Randolph's influence an Episcopal clergyman was secured 
for the church of Boston who reached the town May 16, 
1686. A building was begun soon after, and, tho it suffered 
in the revolution of 1689, was soon after open again, and 
represented a well recognized organization by the end of 
the century.^^ The first Baptist church in Boston, tho 
organized as early as 1685, was opposed so strenuously 
that it had no meeting house for many years. By 1700, 
however, the body was in general on friendly terms with 
the authorities and was more fortunate than the Anglican 
society in its freedom from political entanglement.^* To- 
ward Quakers the change of attitude in Boston had pro- 
gressed even more rapidly than toward the other groups of 
intruders. In forty years they had passed from the violent 
persecution, meted out to them at their first coming, to the 
possession of a brick meeting house, and were no longer in 
general odium. ^^ In 1700, then, Boston had four churches 

i^Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, passim. 

i*Backus, Baptists, I, 173-199, 205, 383-384; Wood, First Baptist Church 
of Boston, passim. As late as 1696 Mather could write of "A Preacher 
in my Neighborhood, who, I hope, is a good Man, however hee bee not 
of my Perswasion, but a froward Anabaptist." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 
209. 

i^While the general tendency was to be increasingly tolerant of this 
sect, there were two parties in the matter, each including various shades 
of opinion. One of these was regretful of the former persecutions, the 
other only sorry that these had not been more eflfective. It is disappoint- 
ing to find Sewall among the latter. He records that in a council meeting 
on August 23, 1708, he opposed granting a petition for the privilege of 
building a Quaker meeting house on the ground that he "would not have 
a hand in setting up their Devil worship." 5 Mass. Hist. Colls., V, 82, 
Sewall's Diary. In spite of the presentation of the Quakers in Magnalia, 
(VII, 22, 23) and the author's description of them in another place as 



40 CHURCH AND STATE IN :MAS,SACHUSETTS [494 

of the standing order, a French Protestant congregation, a 
Baptist church, a Quaker meeting, and King's Chapel. 
Each of these was independent financially except for the 
missionary help which had been given to the Huguenots; 
for the Congregational churches maintained themselves 
exactly as the Baptists were forced to do. 

If Boston was not characteristic of the province at 
large in its method of church support, it was essentially 
unlike the country towns in its inclusion of four recognized 
sects within a single township. While Quakerism and 
Baptist doctrines w^re present in various sections of the 
province and appeared side by side in several places, yet, 
in those districts where they were strongest, the standing 
order was comparatively inconspicuous. Moreover there 
was, as early as 1700, not a single Episcopal church in all 
Massachusetts except the Anglican congregation in Bos- 

"Malicious as well as . . . Pernicious Enemies" (Election Sermon, 1690, 
34), Cotton Mather had already taken a stand against their persecution on 
which he prided himself. "Among other things, I ran the Hazard of 
much Reproch by testifying in that Sermon (Election Sermon, 1692) 
against the Persecution of erroneous and conscientious Dissenters, by the 
civil Magistrate. I feared that the Zeal of my Country had formerly had 
in it more Fire than should have been ; especially, when the mad Quakers 
were sent into the Galloivcs, that should have been kept rather in a Bed- 
lam. I did therefore on this great Occasion bear my Testimony ; hoping, 
that if the General Assembly now thank'd me for it, their doing so, would 
bee accepted both by God and Man. I think, I am the only Minister Liv- 
ing in the Land, that have testifyed against the Suppression of Haeresy, by 
Persecution." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 149, Cotton Mather's Diary, 14 
May, 1692. The Quaker, Thomas Chalkley, visiting Boston in 1698, wrote, 
"I being a Stranger and Traveller could not but observe the barbarous 
and unchristianlike Welcome I had in Boston, the Metropolis of New- 
England. 'Oh! what pity, (said one,) it was that all of your Society was 
not hanged with the other Four !' " Chalkley, Journal, 18. "Remarkable 
was the Answer that one of his Neighbours made him, 'I wonder you are 
not ashamed to say so ; for you know that the Judgments of God have 
been on our Country ever since.' " Chalkley, Anszver to Metcalf, 389. 
Twenty years before this, Mr. Holmes, minister at Duxbury who had re- 
cently died, was described by John Cotton as "one of those who impute 
these dreadful frownes of Providence to our dealing with the Quakers." 
John Cotton to Increase Mather, 3 Jan., 1675/76, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VIII, 228. 



495] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 41 

ton.^^ King's Cliapel itself was an outgrowth of the royal 
prerogative in the capital. Outside of the chief town of 
the province, Episcopacy had so little reason for existence 
that there was no real attempt to introduce it until the 
formation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel I; 
in the following year, and even under its nourishing care 
the Church in Massachusetts continued to be a foreign 
plant. 

On the other hand, the two religious bodies with which 
the standing order first came into conflict expanded natu- 
rally with the inevitable reaction to the strictness of seven- 
teenth century Calvinism. The opposition aroused appeared 
in two distinct attacks upon the Massachusetts system as 
it had worked out and applied the teachings of Calvin. 
One of these was the attack on the alliance between church 
and state which the Massachusetts government had carried 
farther than it had ever been in Geneva. The second was 
the opposition to reliance on authority in religious belief. 
On this point the Puritans of the late seventeenth century 
were hardly less traditionalists than the Roman Catholics 
themselves, for they had substituted the authority of the 
Bible for that of the Church. In the attack on the relation 
between church and state, Roger Williams was the fore- 
runner of both Quakers and Baptists of the later seven- 
teenth century. In comparison with this principle, for 
which the Baptists have always stood, their doctrinal di- 
vergences, especiallj^ of the Particular or Calvinistic Bap- 
tists, were inconspicuous. On the question of the source 
of authority in religious belief, Anne Hutchinson and the 
Antinomians foreshadowed the later Quaker teaching. In 
their opinion divine revelation had not ceased and was to 
be sought in the immediate communion between the indi- 
vidual and God. "Heretical" doctrines such as these 
needed little stimulus from foreign sources and spread 
through Massachusetts with astonishing speed, dwelling 

i®Cf. George Keith. "In all the Continent of New England there is 
no Church of England I think, but at Boston, I have travelled through 
much of it, but never heard of any but that one." Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. 
Colls., I, xi-xii. 



42 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [496 

under the surface and then asserting themselves, dividing 
communities, causing migrations. ^^ To such ideas as these 
the founding of Rhode Island was due in part, while within 
the Plymouth government, far less rigid as it was than the 
Bay Colony, were several regions which became the resort 
of refugees from Massachusetts. Even in Massachusetts 
itself Salem was early the abode of persons of the mystic 
type of mind, the one territory within the boundaries of the 
old colony where they persisted, tho they never flourished 
here as in the Rhode Island region. 

Upon such ground as this fell the seeds of Quakerism 
when the first members of the society reached New England 
in 1656 and 1657, and tho suffering banishment, perse- 
cution and finally death, succeeded in planting the doctrine 
which was to be the greatest foe of New England orthodoxy 
for almost a century. Along theological lines the Quakers 
outstripped the Baptists, placing before all else the efficacy 
of the "inner light," and thus directly assaulting the 
Calvinist's emphasis upon the Scriptures as authority, the 
latter interpreted by the trained Calvinistic theologian. 
The appeal made by the Quaker doctrine in New England 
was therefore twofold. It attracted the more tolerant of 
the younger generation in whom was dawning an apprecia- 
tion of religious liberty. It attracted likewise the religious 
individualist who fought authority in matters of belief. 
Among such were many of the third generation in 
Plymouth Colony who were carrying the principles of 
Independency to their logical conclusions. In the main, 
however, the Quaker apostacy in Massachusetts was not so 
much a thought movement as a popular reaction to a gov- 
ernment aristocratic in political and ecclesiastical affairs, 
a government in which a large number of the people had 
little to say. This explains the fact that, with certain 
exceptions, the Quaker of New England occupied a far 
lower social position than the Philadelphia Friend. 

I'^The pre-Quaker movement in New England has been described in 
Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies, London, 191 1. 



497] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 43 

Between the coming of the Quakers and the beginning 
of provincial government, when an extended boundary, a 
new franchise, and a gTeater liberty of conscience modified 
the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system, the Society of 
Friends was spreading rapidly. Within the limits of the 
old Bay Colony the one center, as already indicated, was 
Salem and Lynn, and from the north shore itinerant 
preachers traveled into the Piscataqua region which em- 
braced the New Hampshire towns and the villages of the 
Maine coast. But of all the divisions of New England 
which in 1700 made up the province of Massachusetts Bay, 
the three counties which had once formed Plymouth Colony 
offered the most serious problems in the relation of Congre- 
gationalist and Friend. The reasons for this have already 
appeared. Among the Plymouth Colony people there was a 
tendency to resist a rigid ecclesiasticism such as Massa- 
chusetts was forming. This found expression in the 
Quaker and Baptist leanings of many individuals and in 
the comparative liberality of the Plymouth government 
toward dissenting sects. While it is not true that the 
authorities at Plymouth were in any way friendly to the 
Quakers, they may have been influenced in the direction 
of persecution by the Boston government. They were 
severe in restrictive laws and fined and imprisoned through 
a period of many years ; but they failed to enforce the law 
in the outskirts of the colony and never made use of the 
death penalty. ^^ The close proximity to the liberal towns 
of Rhode Island was of importance in maintaining this 
spirit in southeastern Massachusetts. 

Of the three counties which had formerly belonged to 
Plymouth Colony and were at the beginning of the 
eighteenth century a part of the province of Massacliusetts 
Bay, each maintained a thriving Quaker center. Plymouth 
town in her consistent aversion to the sect had relegated it 
to her neighbors on the northward; but here, in Scituate, 
Marshfield and Duxbury, to which towns missionaries from 

i^Backus, Baptists, I, 229, 450-453, 465 ; Thomas, Quakers, 209 ; Ellis, 
New Bedford, 34-36. 



44 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [498 

Rhode Island had come after 1658, the Society of Friends 
was holding a meeting as early as 1660.^^ In the county 
of Barnstable the two towns at the base of the cape, Sand- 
wich and Falmouth, formed a vigorous Quaker community 
which held a meeting by 1672. The third Quaker center 
within the boundaries of old Plymouth Colony, embracing 
all the southern part of the Massachusetts ^ay Province, 
was Bristol county.^^ There is a certain embarrassment in 
treating this region as a part of Massachusetts. Including 
as it did in 1700 not merely the townships which are still 
within its borders, but the whole eastern shore of Narra- 
gansett Bay as well, it represented a greater liberality and 
independence along political and religious lines than any 
other section of the province. These towns did indeed 
belong to Rhode Island in their history, their sympathies 
and their purposes, and were only geographically and 
politically a part of Massachusetts. The history of the 
religious development in them was parallel to that on the 
island. In many there was a mixture of beliefs unified 
only by an insistence upon independence of authority in 
both spiritual and temporal concerns. Others possessed 
a unity in doctrine best represented in the almost solid 
Quakerism of old Dartmouth. The assembly of Plymouth 
Colony had attempted to legislate in regard to public 
worship and the ministry here, but was never able to 
enforce its orders on the town.^^ 

While Bristol county was preeminently the stronghold 
of Massachusetts Quakerism at the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, to neglect the presence of the Baptists 
within its borders would be unjust to a sect which, tho 
more restricted at this period, was destined to become the 
political successor of the Society of Friends. Backus 
recognizes only two communities including Boston in which 
there were Baptist churches before 1700 and mentions no 
other before 1736.-^ While this is accurate only if a 

i^Thomas, Quakers, 212. 

-^Jones, Quakers, 39, 40, 57, 58, 60. 

21 Potter, First Cong. Soc. in New Bedford, 14. 

--Backus, Baptists, II, 306-310. 



499] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 45 

restricted notion is held of tlie qualifications of such an 
organization, it is nevertheless indicative of the small 
numbers of this group of dissenters in Massachusetts in the 
first quarter of the eighteenth century.-^ It is again sig- 
nificant of the nature of Bristol county that the first 
Baptist society within the boundaries of the present state 
was permitted to establish itself in this region many years 
before it had any sister church except the group at Boston. 
This church was founded by a body of Baptists from a town 
in Wales who left home with their pastor at the ejectment 
of the nonconforming ministers in the early days of the 
Kestoration, found favor with certain Plymouth magis- 
trates of liberal views, and secured the region of Swansea 
in which to settle. The remarkable feature in the grant of 
New Swansea in 1667 is that it was only a territorial grant 
and made no condition as to settlement and government. 
The immediate growth of the church was due to the fact 
that there had existed for several years in this part of old 
Rehoboth a group of persons who opposed the established 
church and had taken up with certain Baptist principles. 
Amicable relations were maintained with the orthodox 
members of the community, a condition made possible by 
the unusual catholicity of the Welsh pastor, while the 
church stood out only for independence from government 
control. Not until he was succeeded by a man who pro- 
fessed more rigid views in theology and drew the church 
with him, did religious controversy between Baptist and 
Congregationalist begin, in time splitting the church on 
sectarian lines.^^ 

^^Backus quotes a letter from Edward Wallin of London to Callen- 
der, dated 9 March, 1720, which says, "I am indeed troubled at the paucity 
of those of our denomination, in New England ; though I cannot wonder at 
it, considering the treatment they have generally met with." Baptists, I, 

487. 

-*Bicknell, Barrington, passim; Backus, Baptists, I, 282-284, 453; II, 
24; E. Williams to I. Backus, 25 Nov., 1774, Backus Papers (New Eng- 
land Bap. Hist. Soc), Portfolio 2; I. Backus to J. Morse, 9 March, 1791, 
Backus Papers (R. I. Hist. Soc), I, 15. 



■46 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [500 

Another early church in Bristol county was the one at 
Dartmouth itself, whose first teacher had found it profitable 
to leave the older part of Pl3^mouth Colony because of 
liberal views. John Cooke had been deacon in Plymouth 
church for some years,-^ but was said to have been excom- 
municated for causing dissension and "running into 
sectarian and anabaptistical principles ;" leaving Plymouth 
he finally settled in Dartmouth, A church was probably 
founded in the west part of the town about leSS.-*^ At 
Tiverton a Baptist church is said to have been organized 
in the previous year.^'^ 

This description of the first Quaker and Baptist meet- 
ings within the limits of the later Massachusetts Bay 
Province has dwelt only on the more important centers of 
the propaganda. There were Baptists in all the Khode 
Island border towns-^ and on the islands adjacent to Cape 
Cod,-^ while in small numbers they appeared in many other 
villages of Plymouth Colony. There were also a few in 
the Piscataqua region.^*' Quakers were found between 
1698 and 1705 in many of the communities to the northward 
such as Hampton (Amesbury),^^ Salisbury,^- Exeter,^^ 
Jamaica, ^^ Newbury ,^^ HaverhilF'^ and Strawberry Bank 
(Portsmouth)^" as well as the Isles of Shoals.^^ They 

-^John Cotton to Cotton Mather, 19 Apr., 1681, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VIII, 251-252. 

26Backus, Baptists, I, 452-454. 

-'ly^th Anniversary of the Organisation of the United Congregational 
Church of Little Compton, R. I., 13. 

28Samiiel Lee to Increase Mather, 25 Aug., 1687, 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VIII, 540, Mather Papers. 

'^Bownas, Life and Travels, 120; Keith's Journal, 22, 23. 

30Backus, Baptists, I, 405. 

^iChalkley, Journal, 18, 20; Keith's Journal, 8; Bownas, Life and 
Travels, 121. 

32Chalkley, Journal, 21 ; Keith's Journal, 10. 

33Bownas, Life and Travels, 121. 

s^Chalkley, Journal, 21. 

^^Keith's Journal, 13; Bownas, Life and Travels, 121. 

36Chalkley, Journal, 21. 

^''Keith's Journal, 12-13. 

s^Chalkley, Journal, 20. 



501] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 47 

were living in the towns near Scituate,^^ in the region at 
the base of the cape around Barnstable and Yarmouth/^ on 
the adjacent islands,^ ^ in all the little settlements on both 
sides of the Acushnet river/^ while in even greater numbers 
they lined the shore of Narragansett bay. It has been 
estimated that there were three thousand within the limits 
of old Plymouth Colony and that one-third of the Pisca- 
taqua region was Quaker.^^ 

Before 1702 there were eight monthly meetings for 
business in New England. These were the meeting of 
Greenwich, covering the Narragansett country; of Rhode 
Island, which included Tiverton and Little Compton; of 
Dartmouth ; of Sandwich, embracing Falmouth and Yar- 
mouth; of Pembroke, which included Scituate, Marshfield 
and Duxbury; of Salem; of Hampton; and of Dover. 
These monthly meetings were not long in grouping to form 
the quarterly meetings in which bodies the Friends did a 
large share of their most important work. The monthly 
meetings of Barnstable and Plymouth counties made up 
the Sandwich and Scituate Quarterly Meeting. Dart- 
mouth and Rhode Island Monthly Meetings joined Green- 
wich to form the Rhode Island Quarterly, while all the 
northern towns, whether in Massachusetts proper. New 
Hampshire, or Maine, united in 1705 to make up the Salem 
Quarterly Meeting and to this the Boston Friends likewise 
belonged. ^^ This centralized organization was completed 

^^Ibid., 39, 45. 

^^Ibid., 22, 39, 45 ; Fothergill, Life and Travels, 40. 

*iChalkley, Journal, 19, 39; Bownas, Life and Travels, 120. 

^-Chalkley, Journal, 39, 45. 

*^Jones, Quakers, XV. Keith was underrating the Quaker strength in 
Massachusetts, with a view to encouraging the authorities who had sent 
him to lead the Quakers from their error, when he wrote, "Few Quakers 
are at Boston. There are some at Sandwich, some at Piscataway and 
others scattered Places, but very few." Prof. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, 
xij. 

**Jones, Quakers, 141, note 2; 142, note i; Moses Brown Papers^ 
XVIII, 55; N. E. Yr. M., passim; A Brief Account of the Yearly Meeting 
of Friends for New England, with the Subordinate Meetings of which if 
is composed, 11-22. 



48 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [502 

in the New England Yearly Meeting, occurring every June 
on Rhode Island, and attended by representatives from all 
the Quaker towns and villages who flocked to Rhode Island 
in great numbers. As a business meeting its importance 
can hardly be overestimated, for by making the local prob- 
lems of all parts of two governments a matter for group 
consideration, it effected results for scattered hamlets 
which could never have been secured by anything but united 
efforts. The corresponding organization in England was 
no more thoro in this regard. 

During the years of this development in the organiza- 
tion of New England Quakerism, there had come a decided 
reaction from that spirit of intolerant hatred which had 
been shown toward the first comers. Prejudice had les- 
sened but little in tlie forty years since Quakerism first ap- 
peared in Massachusetts ; but New England orthodoxy was 
learning that the Society of Friends was not advocating the 
practices of Miinster in spite of the extremes to which some 
of the fanatics had resorted in days gone by. That tendency 
among the more ignorant of the first converts which the 
New England Yearly Meeting styled "ranterism" had 
existed in the earlier days but was rapidly disappearing.^^ 
Frowned on from the first by the better social class among 
the Friends, it became less and less conspicuous until little 
ground for complaint on this score might be found. ^^^ In 

^^Jones, Quakers, 113. "The old spirit and Principle of ye ranters 
the Lord hath brought down in these parts, Truth having Gained ye vic- 
tory over them, so yt we meet with little opposition from them." Epistle 
to Lond. Yr. M., 1699, Epistles Rec'd, I, 301 ; Lond. Yr. M., 'II, 302 ;[ 
"Aaron Atkinson's account of his Travels in America," Lond. Yr. M., II, 

313- 

*®The memorial of the Massachusetts government in respect to Qua- 
ker grievances in 1708 said, "nor are those that go Under the Denomina- 
tion of Quakers now such as were then [17th century], who were some of 
them Open bold Disturbers of the Publick Peace and their Principles no- 
toriously known to be Heretical, but are much refined both in principles 
and Conversation." Mass. Archives, XI, 279-280. Four years later the 
New England Yearly Meeting was writing to the London Friends, "our 
Yearly meeting hath been Very Large, and Through the great Love and 
Contineued fifavor of ouer gratious God and Heavenly fifather, wee have 



503] OPPOSING ELEMENTS 49 

all its early history Quakerism suffered seriously on both 
sides of the Atlantic from a failure on the part of its 
adversaries to appreciate the teachings of George Fox and 
his followers. It was the inevitable lack of sympathy 
between the mystic and the religious traditionalist, the 
latter represented by New England Puritan as well as by 
English Churchman. To the English clergy and to the 
New England ministers the doctrine of the inner light and 
the Quaker treatment of the Bible were nothing less than 
the overthrowing of the Scriptures as the source of 
authority, with the substitution of the all sufficiency of the 
light within. Yet more sacrilegious was the denial of the 
efficacy of Christ's life and death, the inner light again 
becoming all important and acting as a substitute for the 
atonement. The emphasis of the Church of England was 
on the sacraments, of the Puritan on the Bible. The 
Quaker in breaking away from the absolute necessity of 
either was, therefore, it seemed to both schools of 
theologians, not merely heretical but actually non-Chris- 
tian. With increasing knowledge and a better apprecia- 
tion of the Quaker's creed and purposes a far kinder spirit 
was awakened, while in the meantime the industry and 
piety of the individual Friend was beginning to make an 
impression which was bound to have visible results before 
many years had elapsed. 

Enioyed the Same without aney Disturbance; Ye Spirit of Ranterism 
which fformerly Interrupted our-Quiett and peaceable assemblies being 
well Extingueshed." N. E. Yr. M., 72; Land. Yr. M., IV, 326. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The System in Practice. 

Between the inauguration of royal government in 
Massachusetts and the first legal confession that the Con- 
gregational church-state system was weakening and forced 
to make concessions, there were just thirty-six years. In 
this period various forces were struggling together. On 
the one hand appeared seventeenth century Calvinism, still 
guiding creed and platform, but troubled by what appeared 
to be the degeneracy of the times, a falling away from the 
fervent piety of the earlier generation. On the other hand 
there loomed large the spirit of persistent opposition to 
authority in matters ecclesiastical which was at last to 
make its impression because of changes that were at the 
time working within. These thirty-six years saw two 
failures of the clergy to secure governmental sanction for 
the holding of a synod; it saw the death of the elder 
Mather; it saw also the beginnings of the Anglican move- 
ment in New England and its support b}^ the royal govern- 
ors; and it saw the persistent increase in the number of 
Quaker and Baptist meetings which finally brought about 
the first exemption laws in their favor. It is for these 
reasons that the first quarter century under the province 
charter was conspicuously transitional, and yet, in the first 
twenty years at least, it represented the highest point which 
the Massachusetts church-state system reached, so far as 
detailed legislation and the execution of effective measures 
were concerned. In the colonial period the name "theoc- 
racy" best expressed the nature of the government; in the 
early provincial period there existed the anomaly of an 
enterprising royal province executing laws which main- 
tained the shell of a weakening ecclesiasticism, the glory 
and fervor of which had departed. Yet another century 
had to pass before the system was allowed to expire and 

50 



505] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 51- 

tilt' (apposing elements were at this time only beginning to 
oriiauize. On the threshold then of new adjustments in the 
old order, that system can best be examined, for those first 
adjustments made changes that greatly altered the whole 
legal procedure in ecclesiastical affairs. The foundation 
of the system was the passage of the first laws under the 
charter for maintaining religion; its opposing elements 
Avere the inward declination from standards of former days 
and the pressure from without of new hostile forces. 

The strong feeling of particularism which the first 
churches of Plymouth Colony transmitted to the more 
Presbyterianly inclined meetings of the Bay had had its 
effect in producing a church establishment in which the 
central government was at first little more than a source 
of authority, shifting all the execution of its ecclesiastical 
laws upon the individual towns. The provincial assembly, 
having ordered that each town be provided with a minister, 
put it into the hands of that town and its church to procure 
him and bargain with him; likewise the assembly, having 
ordered that he be maintained, left it with each town to 
assess and collect the taxes therefor. A little later the 
county court began to play an important part in super- 
vising the towns. Only when difficulties ensued did the 
General Court appear on the scene of action, acting as 
court of high appeal or giving advice to contending parties. 
This was the marked tendency of the last of the seventeenth 
and the first of the eighteenth century, and shows clearly 
in what direction matters were traveling. The orthodox 
towns were tending more and more to rely on central 
authority, while nothing short of rigorous action on the 
part of the government could maintain in the whole 
province the conditions which had been the natural expres- 
sion of the religious views of the first comers. To get any 
idea of the actual working of the Massachusetts church- 
state system and of the position which the General Court 
came to occupy in ecclesiastical affairs, it is necessary to 
study local conditions; and this study will be far from 
perfect because of the nature of the material ujjon which 
it must be founded. 



52 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [506 

The church and state relation was the conspicuous 
feature of the Massachusetts community. Whether the 
latter existed as a plantation, as yet unorganized, as a town 
proper with all its accompanying privileges, as a second 
precinct of an original town formed on the basis of religious 
needs, or finally as a second separate town when the new 
precinct warranted such a measure,^ the connection 
between the church and the town, as no less between each 
of these and the court of general sessions or the general 
assembly of the province, was close and vital.^ 

In the transitional or first stage through which a plan- 
tation passed before its erection as a town, there was often 
a movement, especially in those frontier settlements which 

iChanning, Town and County Government, 35. 

-A number of excellent attempts have been made to define the terms 
relating to New England local government in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. These are usually broader than the present subject 
requires and should be slightly modified before a perfectly clear idea can 
be gained of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical system in the early provincial 
period. Tozvnship, which Channing tells us (Town and County Govern- 
ment, 35 ) at first meant merely a tract of land granted to persons who 
intended there to settle a town and gather a church, is already used 
synonymously with town, tho less often, and when so used is likely to 
have a territorial sense in contradistiction to town as a civil organization. 
A group of homesteads not to be considered as a civil organization may be 
termed a village ; and if it is the outlying settlement of some older town 
the name hamlet is not uncommon, as Salem village (later called Danvers) 
or the hamlet of Billingsgate, a part of Eastham. Plantation, while some- 
times used in a general way for town, has more often the technical mean- 
ing, observed by Channing, of a community which has not yet acquired 
the dignity of a town. {Town and County Government, 35.) The pre- 
cinct, parish or district, as it was interchangeably called, tho far less 
clearly defined than the town itself, was a most essential part of the 
Massachusetts ecclesiastical system. Briefly it was a division of a town 
cut off for convenience in regard to attendance at worship and support of 
the ministry. It had at the same time non-ecclesiastical causes and 
characteristics which are inclined to detract from its real significance as a 
little church state, its most important element. This fact is underestimated 
by Howard {Local Constitutional History, 52.) and his definitions are 
therefore less satisfactory. The name parish was not used interchangeably 
with town. Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 65. 



507] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 53 

grew but slowly, for some encouragement of the ministry 
several years before township rights were granted.^ Upon 
an appeal to the General Court the latter often responded 
with a direct money gTant.^ This transitional stage is 
comparatively rare in the provincial period, limited almost 
exclusively to the garrison towns, for by this time all the 
older townships were well established with extensive 
boundaries including practically all the accessible parts of 
the province. 

The change from unorganized plantation to town 
proper therefore is seen mainly in the frontier com- 
munities.^ Upon the organization of these frontier posts 
as towns, the regular laws for maintaining religion went 
into effect; but since the circumstances of their condition 
were unusual, numerous exceptions were made in their 
favor which gave the transition and resulting conditions 
an abnormal character. 

The normal method of forming a new town in the 
provincial period was to cut off a part of an older township 
and erect it as a new one, or to create one from a part of 
an older township which had already been recognized as a 
separate precinct. The former was the more direct method 
and was sometimes resorted to when any friction in town 
or church affairs was likely to make the precinct system 
impracticable. Several towns by this means skipped the 
precinct period.^ 

However normal and direct this immediate formation 
of a new town from the outskirts of an old settlement may 
seem, it was not the usual custom in the provincial period; 
and in the history of the "precinct", its origin, its nature, 

^Buck, Mass. Ecc. Law, 151, refers to the organization of the church 
before the town as the custom of the country but this method was not 
sufficiently general in the early provincial period to warrant such a state- 
ment. 

^Brookfield, 1698, 1702. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 197, ch. 27, 34^, ch. 27. 

^Biddeford, 1716, 1718. Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 475, ch. 42; 626, ch. 98. 

^Brookline, 1705. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, ch. 22; 145, ch. yz si «^^*«/ 
Sunderland, 1718. Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 621, ch, 88. 



54 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [508 

its relation to the parent town, can well be exhibited the 
application of the church-state system/ 

The first settled towns of Massachusetts resembled 
small counties in their broad-lying boundaries, and the 
meeting house, which represented the political as well as 
the religious center of the community, was often many miles 
from those townsmen who had taken up with the more 
distant holdings. As time went on and population 
increased, it was natural for the outlying farms to form 
together in smaller groups which, as they increased in size, 
became more and more dissatisfied with their long distance 
from the towns' center and growingly eager to begin a new 
community life of their own. As there were often reasons 
why the formation of a new town was undesirable, the 
precinct system was initiated, and was fairly well estab- 
lished when the provincial government began. 

^Considered as an ecclesiastical unit the precinct may be defined as a 
geographical division of a town the inhabitants of which were in ecclesi- 
astical law the attendants at a single meeting house. Channing (Town 
and County Government, 36) follows Buck (Mass. Ecc. Lazv, 17-18). 
Because of the close relation between church and state this formation 
involved also a civil status for the precinct, of chief importance in the 
collection of taxes. For this purpose the precinct generally had its separ- 
ate constable or collectors and a separate precinct meeting with its own 
moderator and business. It was therefore equivalent to a constablewick. 
Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, 141, ch. 64. A separate school was usually sup- 
ported by the new precinct which in this way became a second district. 
Channing, Town and County Government, 36. The precinct was in the 
third place a military unit, such a condition sometimes occurring within 
a town before a second ecclesiastical precinct had been formed. Baintree, 
1707. Mass. Archives, XI, 241. Precinct and less often parish were the 
technical names for such a division of a town, the latter becoming later 
associated chiefly with its ecclesiastical functions, a meaning which it has 
brought down to the present day in a modified form. Mass. Prov. Laws, 
X, 288, ch. 5. The name society which was applied to the persons of a 
precinct in their corporate existence has continued in the organization of 
the older Congregational churches of New England to the present day. 
The religious body organized as the church relegates its non-religious 
functions to the corporate body known as the society which is made up 
of the enfranchised members of the parish and manages the finances of 
the church. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 246, ch. 19, 



509] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 55 

The order of events was somewhat in this wise. In a 
corner of some old township a group of farmers, who num- 
bered some twenty growing families, wished to have a 
church of their own.^ There might have been friction 
between them and the leading members of the congregation, 
or the roads to town were well nigh impassable, or a river 
was dangerous of fording in the winter time. A movement 
would accordingly be started in the "hamlet" to petition the 
town to agree that they might be set off as a separate pre- 
cinct. If permission w^as secured without further trouble, 
the matter sometimes ended here, with the running of the 
boundary line between the old and new precincts and a 
mutual agreement with regard to the other matters, tho 
an order from the General Court must in the end be gained.^ 

It was far more usual for the parent town to be very 
loath to lose a large and flourishing section. The hamlet 
might not even apply to the town, quite aware of what the 
result would be, or upon application and refusal it would 
appeal to the General Court for interference in the matter. 
This petition, which came from the inhabitants of the dis- 
trict concerned, was usually referred to a committee made 
up of members of the court or inhabitants of neighboring 
towns,^*' whose recommendations were usually accepted. 
But often the town was informed of the application, 
especially if the petition had come direct from the hamlet 
without previous appearance in town meeting, and then the 

^Cotton Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 1-2, describes this same develop- 
ment from the point of view of church government. "A number of 
Christians," he w^rites, "either swarmed into a New Plantation, or finding 
the Church, to which they have belonged, grown to such Circumstances, 
that it may be for the general advantage to have a Nezv Church formed 
in the Neighborhood, first settle their Number, and assure themselves that 
their Number is Competent, and Resolved for the Undertaking." 

^Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 447, ch. 147. 

I'^West Springfield, 1696. Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, in, ch. 12. Of 
the committee here appointed Edward Taylor was minister of the church 
in Westfield, Samuel Partridge the representative from Hatfield in the 
General Court, Aaron Cooke from Hadley and Samuel Root from West- 
field, the towns in Hampshire county nearest to the west precinct of 
Spring^eld. 



56 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [510 

two sides were given a hearing and long and elaborate 
negotiations followed. These struggles give a wonderfully 
clear picture of the ambitions and interests of rural 
1 Massachusetts in the early eighteenth century. ^^ In the 
history of Springfield, for example, there appear during 
this period tw^o particularly animated cases of attempts by 
outlying districts to gain precinct privileges. The inhabi- 
tants of the west side of the Connecticut river^^ applied for 
this degree of independence on the ground that bad roads 
were as nothing in comparison with the danger of crossing 
the stream at some seasons of the year. But as Springfield 
offered a dogged resistance to such curtailment, the matter 
was soon carried (1695) to the General Court, which sum- 
moned both parties and appointed an able committee to 
investigate the matter. While the inhabitants of the west 
side were assuring the tOAvn of their ability to support a 
separate minister and stating that "wee have not the least 
thought of separating from you, or becoming a Townshipe, 
deeming it contrary to our Interest, and an infringement 
of our priviledges soe to doe,"^^ Springfield was grimly 
replying that they were too few to attempt any such thing 
and that "to row a boat or paddle a canoe is no worse than 
to saddle and bridle a horse."^* The committee of the 
General Court was favorable to the west side, and on 
December 4, 1696, the order was made for erecting West 
Springfield into a separate precinct. Even more deter- 
mined did Springfield prove in her relation to the district 
of Longmeadow^^ which had found the town so obdurate 
that after numerous attempts in town meeting covering the 
years between 1703 and 1706 she finally petitioned the 

i^The case of Watertown between 1692 and 1707 is typical. Mass. 
Archives, XI, 63, 64, 73, 86-87, 75, 85, 81 ; Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 55, ch. 
20 et passim; Cal. of St. Papers, Col. Series, Am. and the W. I., 1700; 
241, 246. 

''■^Mass. Archives, XI, 109, 107, 112, 114, 118, 130; Mass Prov. Laws, 
VII, 77, ch. 9; III, ch. 12; 127, ch. 45. 

''■^.Mass. Archives, XI, no, 12 May, 1696. 

^'^Ibid., XI, 114. 

^^Ibid., XI, 215-217; Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, 198, ch. 91; 233, ch. 13. 



511] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 57 

General Court for assistance. In this appeal was the state- 
ment that "wee have constantly paid our Dues towards 
maintainance of the Towne Minister & have for the Greatest 
part of these three years past upon our owne Charge hiered 
& provided a minister amongst ourselves & must without 
Releived be forced to do the same for the future except 
releefe be Granted."^*^ In spite of Springfield's plea that 
she could not afford such a condition, now that the west 
side of the river had been cut off, and that she had placed 
the meeting house with the express purpose of accommo- 
dating Longmeadow, the court was not slow in granting the 
request, and within eight months after the date of the 
petition Longmeadow was made a separate precinct. ^'^ 

Between 1692 and 1728 some twenty new precincts 
were formed in this way by order of the General Court. In 
the customary resistance on the part of the town economic 
factors played an important part. In locating the final 
dividing line therefore, it was not unusual to bear in mind 
where lay the best land for cultivation and to make the 
division accordingly.^^ 

The orders issued bj^ the General Court for the estab- 
lishment of new precincts were usually accompanied by 
regulations of the relation between the two parts of the 
town thus divided, these more or less elaborate as the case 
might require. They regulated the financial method by 
which the new meeting house should be built and both 
maintained, the way in which the two ministers should be 
supported, and the disposal of the ministry land. Nor- 
mally the new precinct would be excused from any further 
payment toward the repair or rebuilding of the old meet- 
ing house or the support of the minister, as it was now 
responsible for its own. Normally also it must relinquish 
its right to the parsonage lot of the original town and 
procure one for its future minister within its own boun- 

^^Mass. Archives, XI, 215, 18 Oct., 1706. 

^Ubid., XI, 215. 

ispiymouth, 1695. Mass. Archives, XI, 92-100; Scituate, 1700. Ibid.„ 

XI, 144, US, 156, 159. 



58 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [512 

daries. But the exceptions to this simple arrangement 
were numerous, caused bj earlier town agreements or by 
special conditions in the township.^^ The complicated 
affairs of Sudbury between 1714 and 17222^ introduced a 
custom of allowing a town as a whole to support its two 
precinct churches.^^ This possibility of a general assess- 
ment to be divided between two or more societies was 
recognized in several petitions submitted to the General 
Court^- and became increasingly popular. 

On some occasions a first precinct continued to levy 
ministerial rates on the inhabitants of a new one after a 
court order had gone into effect, especially if the new 
precinct had been allowed conditionally, the old parish 
maintaining that the conditions had not been fulfilled.^^ If 
there had been special agreement with a minister at his 
settlement into which the whole town had entered in a 
peculiar way, the formation of a new precinct did not free 
its inhabitants from their obligation during his lifetime. 
But if the court deemed that taxes were being levied un- 
justly by the old upon the new precinct, it was ordered to 
desist.^'* 

Most serious of all matters regulated when a new 
precinct was formed was likely to be the settlement of the 
proprietorship of the ministry land.^^ In addition to the 
"settlement" which a town voted its minister, and which 
in the early days was in land, later commuted to money, 

i^Chelmsford, 1724. Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 516, ch. 238. 

-^Ibid., IX, 350, ch. 6; 374, ch. 83; 451, ch. 155; X, 80, ch. 4; 134, ch. 
87; 166, ch, 23; 179, ch. 62; 224, ch. 188; 225, ch. 191. 

-^Ibid., X, 225, ch. 191. 

--Eastham, 1722. Ibid., X, 173, ch. 43; Marblehead, 1715. Ibid., IX, 
426, ch. 107. The religious situation in southeastern Massachusetts resulted 
in a similar arrangement for Rehoboth because of the presence of many- 
Baptists in one of the precincts. Mass. Archives, XI, 387 ; Mass. Prov. 
Laws, IX, 165, ch. 138; 241, ch. 27. 

-^Salem, 1712. Mass. Prov. Lazvs, IX, 258, ch. 82; 261, ch. 93. 

-*Lynn, 1 718/19. Ibid., IX, 640, ch. 131. 

^^Springfield and West Springfield, 1695-1705. Mass. Archives, XI, 128, 
170, 177, 180, 181, 182, 196; Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 349, ch. 2>i, 369. ch. 6; 
VIII, 120, ch. 10. 



513] THE SYSTEM IX PRACTICE 59 

there were always the ministry or parsonage lands, gen- 
erally including the "ministry house'- or parsonage, which 
could be held by the minister only during his pastorate. 
Since this holding was more than likely to be in separate 
parcels in order to include the various kinds of land, such 
as wood lot, pasture and tilled land, the inevitable result 
was that if some of it fell within the borders of the new 
precinct, trouble ensued. On such an occasion the General 
Court would settle the affair with a compromise. 

In arranging the boundaries between two precincts 
the General Court was often involved in intricate problems 
respecting certain farms which had expressed a definite 
preference for one precinct or the other. When these were 
adjacent to the boundary line there was little difficulty in 
arranging a survey which would place them in the section 
which they preferred. If, on the other hand, such farms 
lay well within the precinct limits, special exceptions for 
their convenience were included in the precinct order or 
in a later resolve, with explicit directions regarding the 
payment of taxes.^*' 

In many cases these separate farms found themselves 
applying for transference not merely from one precinct 
to another but to a neighboring town which had set a 
meeting house much nearer them than was their own par- 
ish center. Even then the court might grant the request.^" 
Between two of the Cape Cod towns an unusual situation 
of this kind appeared. For several j- ears previous to 1719 
a number of families living on the eastern side of Harwich 
and bordering on Eastham had been attending the East- 
ham meeting house and had become members of the church, 
while all the time taxed to Harwich and giving nothing 
to Eastham, for the people of the latter place were "so 
kind as to allow them the Benefit of the Meeting House 
without paying support." In 1719, however, there was 

-^Plymouth, 1695. Mass. Archives, XI, 97-98, 100; Weymouth, 1722, 
Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 220, ch. 175; Salem, 1719, ibid., IX, 687, ch. 94; 
Ipswich, 1715-20, ibid., IX and X, passim. 

^^Dorchester, 1721/22. Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 132, ch. 82, 468, ch. 102, 
500, ch. 197. 



60 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [514 

built in the southern part of Eastham and only two miles 
from the Harwich farmers a meeting house which they 
would naturally attend; and they now considered it un- 
reasonable to accept such a favor from Eastham as for- 
merly, especially as Eastham now had the expense of two 
meeting houses. As it would be unjust to be obliged to 
pay their proportion towards support of worship in Har- 
wich w^hen they received no benefit from it, and yet pay 
their part of the charge at Eastham, they approached the 
town of Harwich to allow them to be cut off to Eastham. 
This w^as refused and the General Court, after considering 
the matter, produced a compromise measure whereby "the 
region was to be annexed to Eastham in all things relating 
to the public worship of God, but in all other respects to 
belong to the town of Harwich as formerly. "^^ 

Even when a court order had been obtained, a diffi- 
culty might occur if a group of farms which had been "set 
off" to another town did not succeed in asserting its rights. 
In 1715 six farmers of Newton, who two years before had 
been joined to Roxbury in ecclesiastical affairs, brought 
the assembly's attention to the fact that they were being 
rated to Newton, and some imprisoned for nonpayment. 
The court finally interfered with a resolve in their favor.^^ 

In the absence of special legislation it was not ex- 
pected that a man would frequent a meeting house outside 
of his own precinct or town. He would inevitably be taxed 
to the ministry in the precinct in which he lived and was 
then likely to find himself rated in the other as well, unless 
the latter was of a very generous spirit.^*^ 

-^Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 621, ch. 8; 678, ch. y:^. 

-^Ibid., IX, 289, ch. 16 ; 418, ch. 87 ; X, 230, ch. 205. 

3*^There was also some question whether a communicant who belonged 
within the limits of some other town or precinct and hence paid no minis- 
terial tax for the benefit of his own church should have power to vote 
in calling a minister. The matter came up for decision in 1735 and was 
decided in the negative when the House of Representatives resolved "that 
no person in communion with any church and dwelling without the 
limits of the town or precinct to which such church belongs, and by which 
town or precinct cannot be rated or taxed for the support of their minis- 



515] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 61 

The foregoing statements have shown how the Mas- 
sachusetts system of taxation for ministerial support was 
applied in the formation of towns from unorganized 
plantations, or of new precincts from old townships. With 
the last transformation, that of the precinct into the full 
fledged town, we reach the final step and here may best 
study the actual application of the laws of 1692, 1693, and 
1695, which were the basis of the ecclesiastical system in 
the provincial period. The town must be provided with 
an "able, learned orthodox minister" who, according to the 
law of 1693, must be chosen by the church with the concur- 
rence of the town, "all the inhabitants, and ratable estates 
lying within" the precinct to pay proportionally for his 
maintenance. This maintenance was based on three things, 
the ministry land which every town must put aside for the 
church and of which each minister had the use during his 
ministry; the "settlement", at first an additional piece of 
land to be made over directly to the settled minister and 
to remain in his family, later commuted to a money 
payment f^ and finally the salary. ^^ Settlement and salary 
were matters which required much consideration when- 
ever a new minister was obtained, but the law had secured 
its requirements by stating that if a town neglected its 
dutv in regard to maintenance of the ministry, the court 
of quarter sessions, upon complaint, should impose fines 

ter, hath, nor ever had nor ought to have any vote or power of acting in 
inviting, calling, supporting, continuing or separating from such minister, 
or any other affair that may affect the interest or charge of any town or 
precinct." Mass. Prov. Laws, I, io8. 

3i"Now they proceed into a Salary, to be offered unto the Minister, 
whom they have chosen. [To which there is usually added somewhat 
also, which they call, A settlement, in order to some Subsistence of his 
Family, in case he dy among them." C. Mather, Ratio Disciplinae, 19. 

32In creating a township in 1717 the proviso which the General Court 
included in the order ran,^"provided they have there at least forty 
families settled there with an orthodox Minister within the space of three 
years, and that a Lott and other accommodations as large and convenient 
as may be the Place will admit of in the Judgment of said committee be laid 
out to the first settled Minister, Also a Lott for the Ministry and an other 
for the Use of the School." Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 548, ch. 79. 



62 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [5L6 

upon and even imprison those officials wlio failed to carry 
out their duties. The law of 1695 included a ministerial 
council for the enforcement of the law for choosing a 
minister, — for the case had arisen of a town's failing to 
approve of a church's choice, — and the council was to act 
much in the capacity of arbiter. Yet, over all the General 
Court remained the final appeal from both county court 
and ecclesiastical council, and by holding the purse strings 
of the province treasury could exert an effective influence 
in carrying out her own commands. 

There are several records of special permits in regard 
to ministry land,^^ but on the whole the General Court 
was called upon less often to arrange matters regarding 
this than either settlement or salary. 

The settlement was a variable quantity, large in the 
first instances and in the poorer towns, where land could 
be more easily secured than money, and growing smaller 
as time went on and the salary grew more definitely fixed. 
In 1723 the proprietors of the Indian town of Natick asked 
that they might be empowered to give to Mr. Oliver Pea- 
body, upon his settling among them in the work of the 
ministry, a lot, or lots, containing one hundred acres of 
land and meadow and to make him a commoner or pro- 
prietor in such plantation, "they being uncapable of giving 
any other encouragement."^^ Money settlements were 
later introduced, and these could be raised either by sub- 
scription or by a rate.^^ 

On the whole the question of settlement was a town 
matter, but in arranging for the call of a minister and his 
salary the courts of general sessions were on the alert and 
the provincial assembly was ready to support them. While 
Maiden between 1705 and 1708, just after the death of a 
pastor, "wth all manner of Application Endeavoured a 
New Settlemt of the Ministry among them, and [had] 
given an Invitation to Several worthy Gentlemen to Preach 

s^Suffield, 1703. Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 370, ch. 11; VIII, 17, ch. 24. 
^*Ibid., X, 249, ch. 264. 
35/fctU, VIII, 779. 



517] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 63 

wth them for a Taste of their Gifts in Order to a further 
proceedure," the town found itself under presentment for 
being destitute of a minister and was immediately supplied 
by the court of quarter sessions for Middlesex county. But 
as the town had just taken steps to call another man it 
was obliged to appeal to the General Court to approve the 
minister of its own choice rather than the protege of the 
justices.^*' This same year saw a part of the long struggle 
between the town of Medford and the Middlesex justices 
who had interfered some time before, charging Medford 
with being destitute of a minister, as they did not recog- 
nize the questionable incumbent, Mr, Woodbridge. Eccle- 
siastical councils and many court sittings failed to settle 
the matter, so it finally reached the provincial assembly. 
The investigating committee appointed reported that they 
were of the opinion that "their wound is Incurable and that 
it is necessary that the Reverend Mr. Benja Woodbridge 
and the town of Medford be parted; according to the Ad- 
vice of the Council of Churches there, July 10th 1705. and 
the Orders of Quarter Sessions of Middlesex." Upon his 
removal the town was ordered to pay him forty pounds and 
"the Nine Sabbaths Contribution now in the hands of Mr. 
John Whitmore." It was also directed to procure speedily 
and settle another minister "And this Court do Advise mr 
Woodbridge by no means to discourage the Coming and 
Settlement of another Minister among them,"^'^ 

It was not usually these older towns of the province, 
where orthodox Congregationalism was strongest and the 
order of church government best developed, that called for 
interference; it was rather those outlying districts 
where external causes created a different type of commu- 
nity existence. This was the situation in the many frontier 
towns of Hampshire and Worcester counties, of the New 

^^Mass. Archives, XI, 276; Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 30, ch. 74. 

^''Mass. Prov. Laws, VIII, 253, ch. 84, 28 Nov., 1707; IX, 19, ch. 41, 
30 June, 1708; VIII, 776-793. Another famous example of the super- 
vision of the authorities over the settlement of ministers appears in the 
history of Watertown in 1722. Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 196, ch. 99; 221, 
ch. 176. 



64 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [518 

Hampshire border and along the Maine coast. Yet "many 
of these towns were planned on lines which showed an 
effort to conform to standing rules in ecclesiastical mat- 
ters and were merely prevented by the exigencies of the 
situation. Very different was the atmosphere in the un- 
orthodox towns of the old Plymouth Colony whose early 
history has already been described. With these two types 
of towns the justices of the peace and the lawmakers of 
the province had the closest connection in the affairs of 
church and state. 

If a plantation or town was a recognized garrison, it 
was natural that the selection of a chaplain should go 
with the other military appointments and that the public 
treasury should pay him. A chaplain would then act as 
minister of the town about the garrison and in time of 
peace might continue there. Other frontier towns, which 
had not been made garrisons but had found themselves 
destitute by reason of war or the desertion of settlers, 
prayed the provincial assembly for financial assistance in 
the support of their ministers or that the court would 
procure and send some to them.^^ 

T]ie Maine frontier was an early and successful beg- 
gar. In 1693 the court, in answer to a i^etition from Sam- 
uel Wheelwright, representative of York and Wells in 
the assembly, appointed chaplains for the garrisons at 
those outposts and ordered fifty shillings a month for their 
pay out of the province treasury, "over and above what 
shall be allowed them by the inhabitants."^^ Not long af- 
ter, the upper part of Kittery, later known as Berwick, 
encouraged by the success of York and Wells, sent in a 
similar appeal, and received ten pounds out of the province 
treasury. ^*^ From this time until 1712, when special 

^^The address of Governor Bellomont to the Council and Assembly 
in May, 1700, included this exhortation : "I recommend to your care the 
ministers in the remote parts of the Province who have narrow stipends." 
Cal. of St. Papers, Col. Series, Am. and the W. I., 1700, 485. 

^^Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, 34, ch. 10. 

40/fciU, VII, 88. ch. 43. 



519] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 65 

orders of this kind for Wells, York and Berwick ceased, 
something over two hundred pounds was in this way voted 
outright for the support of the ministry in these three 
towns, part of which was for the building of meeting 
houses.^ ^ Soon after Wells, York and Berwick were on 
their feet and no longer needing public aid, the far east- 
ward settlement of Winter Harbor began to receive assist- 
ance. Between 1717 and 1725 more than two hundred 
pounds were voted for the support of the ministry at this 
garrison and settlement which in 1718 was made the town 
of Biddeford and after 1723 shared its minister with the 
neighboring Arundel, the ''Gentleman that performs the 
Said Service to preach on the Lords Day alternately ... If 
the Weather will permit."^"^ During the last years of 
payments to Biddeford and Arundel, the town of Scar- 
borough received sixty pounds on account of the low cir- 
cumstances to which it had been reduced by the Indian 
wars,'*^ while ninety pounds went to Falmouth on Casco 
Bay.^4 

Among the newer frontier towns, lying along the New 
Hampshire border and in Worcester County, Dunstable, 
Lancaster and Brookfleld were the most favored. The 
year 1696 saw thirty pounds voted towards the mainten- 
ance of a minister at the garrison at Dunstable and twenty 
pounds were paid in the following year.^^ At the close of 
the war the town was loath to lose public assistance, and 
the inhabitants, the selectmen, the town's representative 
in Boston, and the minister himself sent in a constant 
stream of petitions to the court between 1698 and 1714 
which resulted in twelve separate grants, varying from ten 
to twenty-six pounds, and becoming after 1709 practically 

'^''^Mass. Prov. Laws, VII, i6o, ch. 28; 202, ch. 53; 304, ch. 49; 222, ch. 
19; 247, ch. 22; 252, ch. 41; 304, ch. 49; 341, ch. 16; VIII, 36, ch. 77, 78; 
69, ch. 14; IX, 213, ch. 120; 241, ch. 26. 

*^Ibid., IX, 395, ch. 25; 537, ch. 45; 589, ch. i ; 626, ch. 98; X, 9, ch. 10; 
80, ch. 3; 199, ch. 109; 303, ch. 36; 448, ch. 45; 558, ch. 368; 592, ch. 43. 

*^Ibid., X, 277, ch. 275 ; 378, ch. 279 ; 462, ch. 84 ; 599, ch. 63. 

*^Ibid., X, 172, ch. 41 ; 725, ch. 422. 

45/fciU, VII, 113, ch. 17; 168, ch. 49. 



66 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [520 

a regular payment of twenty pounds per annum. ^° The 
death of the Kev. John Whiting in the attack on Lan- 
caster, September 11, 1697, with the subsequent difficulty 
which the inhabitants felt they would have in persuading 
anyone to settle with them, resulted in the first petition 
for aid sent by this town, and the response of twenty 
pounds from the province treasury. ^"^ In 1704 forty pounds 
were allowed for building a meeting house."*^ Brookfleld, 
lying far to the westward on the Connecticut trail, was 
maintained as a garrison many years before its estate 
warranted township privileges and received many grants 
for the ministry between 1698 and 1714, the total reaching 
over two hundred pounds.^ ^ 

On the western frontier the two river towns lying 
well to the northward and hence open to the Indian incur- 
sions which followed down the Connecticut, were for 
several years pensioners of the public treasury. Deer- 
field, as a garrison, was paid ten pounds in 1696^^ and 
double that sum in 1703.^^ In the year following the 
Deerfield massacre, when John Williams was carried into 
captivity, the court resolved to send a chaplain to the town 
to serve in his place, and voted him twenty pounds for six 
months' service, repeating the order in the following 
year.^^ With the return of Williams the grants were not 
suspended, and over one hundred pounds were in five years 
voted to defray his expenses, the individual amounts vary- 
ing from ten to forty pounds,^'^' Northfield, where settle- 
ment was hindered by the progress of the war, received her 

*^Mass. Prov. Lazvs, VII, 197, ch. 36; 311, ch. 68; VIII, 41, ch. 90; 
126, ch. 29; 259, ch. loi ; IX, 36, ch. 89; 86, ch. 90; 121, ch. 7; 146, ch. 83; 
366, ch. 64. 

^Ubid., VII, 168, ch. 47. 

*^Ibid., VIII, 99, ch. 96. 

^^Ihid., VII, 197, ch. 27', 346, ch. 27; VIII, 34, ch. 74; 143, ch. 69; 
201, ch. 100; 246, ch. 55; IX, 38, ch. 100; 252, ch. 65; 303, ch. 62; 377, 
ch. 96. 

so/tic/., VII, 113, ch. 16. 

^^Ibid., VIII, 35, ch. 75- 

52/fctU, VIII, 84, ch. 55 ; 143, ch. 68. 

^^Ibid., VIII, 209, ch. 126; 242, ch. 43; IX, 38, ch. 98; 148, ch. 93; 
238, ch. 13; 252, ch. 63. 



521] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 67 

first instalment of public funds as late as 1718, when the 
sum of forty pounds was voted for the support of the 
minister, and an additional thirty pounds in 1724.^^ Va- 
rious other grants were made in a similar manner to 
frontier villages and Indian settlements during the first 
thirty years under the province charter. Among such 
may be mentioned Stow, Leicester and Tisbury on Martha's 
Vineyard.^'^ 

So long as the recipient of these money payments was 
simply a chaplain at a garrison there was nothing unusual 
in this method of appointing and maintaining him, but 
since, even when chaplain, he was also considered the 
minister of the small community grouped around the fort 
and was often retained when the immediate necessity for 
a garrison had ceased, his position in relation to the 
church is interesting. Between 1693 and 1725 almost six- 
teen hundred pounds, varying in amounts from ten to fifty 
pounds, were in this way voted by the Massachusetts Gen- 
eral Court to the maintenance of the ministry or the 
building of meeting houses in frontier communities. The 
direct method of appropriating money was the one most 
often used, but on various occasions certain indirect means 
were adopted. The amount of the province tax was re- 
duced with the understanding that town rates for the 
support of the minister could then be assessed and col- 
lected, or the whole amount was ordered to be turned back 
to the constables for the use of the ministry. Occasionally 
some special means of taxation was allowed which would 
bring in more money than the normal method would have 
procured.^^ This was likely to bear heaviest on non-resi- 

^^Mass. Prov. Lazvs, IX, 604, ch. 38; X, 533, ch. 287. A much earlier 
grant was made in 1701 of fifteen pounds for the payment of a garrison 
chaplain who had served at Northfield in the time of Sir Edmund Andros. 
Ihid., VII, 303, ch. 46. 

^^Ibid., VII, 173, ch. 60, 17 Dec, 1697; X. 699, ch. 341, 8 Dec, 1725; 
VII, 293, ch. 23, 26 June, 1701 ; IX, 533, ch. 33, 18 June, 1717; 597, ch. 22, 
18 June, 1718; VIII, 118, ch. 5, 8 June, 1705. 

^^In 1700 Wrentham secured the remitting of 20 pounds of her 
province rate of 1696. Ibid., VII, 633. In 1703 the province treasurer was 



68 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [522 

dent proprietors.^^ In 1720 the House of Representatives 
excused three towns for failing to send representatives to 
Boston, — Needham, and Brookfield, because of the charge 
they were under in building meeting houses, and Manches- 
ter because it was settling a minister.^^ 

This rigorous paternalism in the enforcement of 
ecclesiastical law was not limited, as has been observed, to 
the frontier communities of the province, tho it was 
most often exercised there. For tliem the General Court 
was merely continuing a policy adopted in the colonial 
period and explicable on the gTound that as religious wor- 
ship was deemed essential to the good morals of a town or 
plantation, and hence of the province as a whole, it was a 
pious duty to appropriate funds for the support of religious 
worship where poverty or meager population made an 
independent maintenance difficult. After 1691 a new and 
curious problem presented itself, the cause and nature of 
which have already been discussed. In dealing with the 
"unorthodox'' communities of Barnstable and Bristol coun- 
ties the Massachusetts General Court assumed a new and 
very different position from that which she had held in 
managing her frontier posts. In the enforcement of eccle- 
siastical law in Swansea, Freetown and Attleboro, Dart- 
mouth, Tiverton and Little Compton, Sandwicli and 
Falmouth she became preeminently the dictator of ortho- 
doxy, in two of these towns using her powers to displace 
a religious organization which represented the almost 
unanimous opinion of the inhabitants. 

directed to order Wells and York to pay their minister the sums of 15 
and ID pounds respectively of the province rate last levied on those towns. 
Mass Prov. Lazvs, VIII, 36, ch. 77, 78. 

^'''In 1724 permission was given Rutland to tax her unimproved land 
towards the support of the ministry. Ibid., X, 532, ch. 284. Similar 
orders were issued for Enfield, Hopkinton and Scarborough. Ibid., X, 
479, ch. 136; 450, ch. 51; 378, ch. 279. The taxing of non-resident pro- 
prietors had been resorted to in the colonial period. Mass. Archives, XI, 
13-14. Worcester and Oxford came under this ruling in 1716 and 1718. 
Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 318, ch. 82. 

^^House Journal, 1720, 3. 



523] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 69 

In 1692, when the assembly began to put once more 
into legislation the old ecclesiastical system, it was facing 
but two groups of dissenting interests in the rural towns. 
Of these the Baptists had but one strongly organized body 
and the Quakers were limited to certain definite sections 
of territory. On Cape Ann, that region of the old Bay 
Colony where heretical opinions best flourished and Qua- 
kerism found a ready acceptance, this element never 
reached suflQcient prominence in any town to cause the 
interference of the General Court. Though there was al- 
ways difficulty at Salem and Lynn in collecting from the 
Quakers the ministerial assessments,^^ they were never in 
sufficient numbers to block legislation, and no towns in 
Essex county ever suffered presentment for lack of a 
minister.*^" 

In the newly acquired section of territory, embracing 
Plymouth, Barnstable, and Bristol counties, the vicinity of 
Plymouth presented a similar state of affairs,*"'^ On Cape 
Cod*"'^ the difficulties were greater as the Quakers were 
here more numerous, tho not usually in the majority. At 
Sandwich and Falmouth they resisted the collectors for 
many years and were regularly distrained of their goods in 
accordance w^ith the law.®^ When in 1707 the general 
sessions of Barnstable county discovered that these two 
towns were "defective with respect to the ministry," they 
gave orders according to the law of 1706, but enforcement 
was difficult. When the matter reached the General Court, 
this body voted twenty pounds from the province treasury 
for the ministry at Falmouth,^^ by this act setting a pre- 
cedent for future years. The year 1713 saw the sum of forty 
pounds held out as an inducement to the building of a 

^^Salem Mo. M., passim. 
^^Essex Sessions. 
^^Pembroke Mo. M., passim. 

8-The records of the court of general sessions of the peace for the 
county of Barnstable are not in existence. 
^^Sandwich Mo., M., passim. 
^*Mass. Archives, XI, 256, 257. 



70 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [524 

meeting house."' On later occasions the General Court 
was forced to come to the assistance of Joseph Metcalf, the 
minister,"'^ when he complained of the depreciation of the 
paper currency, of wliich the town refused to take account 
when paying his salary /'''^ In 1714 and 1717 he was allowed 
forty pounds from the province treasury, but finally, in 
1710, his case was turned over to "the Committee, that 
receiv'd the Charity of this Province Collected the Last 
Year, upon a Brief Issued by this Government for the 
Propagating of the Gospel.'"^^ 

If in Barnstable county Massachusetts had a sugges- 
tion of the problems which could be created by elements 
unfriendly to her system, in Bristol the difficulty was many 
times magnified. At Swansea the enforcement of ecclesi- 
astical law was thwarted by a firmly organized Baptist 
society; at Dartmouth was the most vigorous Quaker 
meeting of the province, always supported by the Baptists 
in its borders; at Tiverton was a smaller Quaker commu- 
nity; while Attleboro, Freetown, and Little Compton were 
towns of mixed type, harboring various sects and sympa- 
tliizing keenly with Rhode Island in her ideas of religious 
liberty. In this region also a further element of resistance 

^^'Mass Prov. Lazvs, IX, 292, ch. 27. 

^^Metcalf was the author of a work on "enforced maintenance" in 
which he argues strongly in favor of the system. The work has not sur- 
vived but can be followed closely in the reply to it by the Quaker, Thomas 
Chalkley. Chalkley, Answer to Metcalf. 

^'^This difficulty regarding paper money which many other ministers 
soon encountered became so acute by 1724 that the General Court was 
obliged to consider the matter. The report of a committee from this body 
recommended that a law be made to compel every parish to make up 
to its minister an amount equal to the difiference, the county court to 
determine how much the currency had depreciated. While this report 
did not become law, a resolve was passed recommending it to every town 
and precinct, this resolve to be read in every congregation on the next 
Lord's day and in the parish meetings of the following March. Mass. 
Prov. Laws, X, 563, ch. 385. 

^^Mass Prov. Laws, IX, 673, ch. 56. The organization of this fund 
seems to be the cause for the cessation of grants from the public treasury 
to the ministry throughout the province. Freetown was voted its bene- 
faction in the same year. House Journal, 1719, i. 



525] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 71 

to the Massachusetts state church appeared in the first 
decade of the eighteenth century when the missionaries of 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel met some 
success in the Rhode Island border towns.*'^ Here they left 
behind them a number of groups which had announced 
their allegiance to the Church of England. On this basis 
these proceeded to resist the ecclesiastical laws of the 
province but seldom united in this purpose with the Bap- 
tist and Quaker societies. 

The first attack made by the court of general sessions 
of Bristol county in accordance with the laws of 1692 and 
1693 was upon Swansea, whose only meeting was the 
Baptist church now thirty years old. To enforce upon it 
the Congregational ministry and public taxation for its 
support was to upset the whole system. When presented 
for not having a minister according to law, Swansea in 
town meeting proceeded to approve the Baptist preacher 
as her minister.^*^ The law had not made it plain how the 
justices were to proceed in such a case, and the matter was 
dropped for the time being. 

In 1698 Bristol sessions began to deal vigorously with 
all the defective towns witliin its jurisdiction, and contin- 
ued its efforts for a period of thirty years. But so clearly 
defined was the type of community which it had to master 
and so determined was the opposition to its authority, that 
the attempt resulted only in a series of compromises, many 
of which foreshadowed the coming exemption laws. In all 
these years it was never possible to enforce the law in this 
section of Massachusetts. 

^3"As to the Case of ye Church of Tivertone Swanzey flfreeton and 
little Compton in ye whole of these I believe there may be betwixt 2 or 300 
people that are Church people & are resolved never to have any other 
Minister but a Church Minister unless the Government of ye Collony of 
Massachusetts under whose Government they are) force and independant 
upon them, wch they have done in ffreetown already, & will in the rest 
if their is not a Missionary Sent to take possession of that Church built 
in Tivertone." Stewart to Nicholson, 12 Feb. 1719/20, 5". P. G. Letters, 
A XIV, 162. 

''^oBicknell, Barrington, 133, 179, 201. 



72 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [526 

In 1698 failure to procure a minister was reported by 
the grand inquest for Swansea, Dartmouth, Tiverton, 
Freetown and Attleboro, wliile most of this group with 
Rehoboth and Little Compton lacked school masters J ^ 
The selectmen of these towns summoned to Bristol had 
various reports to submit. Swansea, as previously stated, 
sent word that she was provided, but the statement was for 
a time not accepted, and she was ordered to procure a 
minister immediately.'^^ By April of 1699, however, the 
justices had been informed of the exact situation in Swan- 
sea and agreed not to interfere with the ministry of Samuel 
Luther."^ As a matter of fact the Baptist church of 
Swansea, by standing for principles so liberal that it was 
able to include tlie Congregationalists in the region, long 
saved tlie town from an effective attack by the general 
sessions. Not until it was remolded upon a more extreme 
Baptist form did the Congregationalists of Swansea be- 
come dissatisfied. The result of this dissatisfaction was a 
petition to the general sessions in 1707 asking the assist- 
ance of the justices in procuring an orthodox minister. 
The selectmen of Swansea who were summoned at this 
time reminded the general sessions of the long continued 
recognition bj^ that body of their minister, and after post- 
ponement and much discussion a compromise was agreed 
upon.'^^ Wliile it was decided that orthodoxy must be 
introduced into Swansea and a sum assessed upon the town 
for the support of the ministry, it was agreed that the work 
of lAitlier ought to be recognized. Accordingly it was voted 
that half of the yearly assessment should be settled on 
him, the rest to go to the minister of the standing order.'''^ 
But no very satisfactory arrangement was discoverd^^ until 

''^Bristol Sessions, I, 13. 

■'Hbid., I, 15. 

''^Ibid., I, 17, 19. 

'^'^Ibid., I, 121, 129; Bicknell, Barrington, 139-141. 

''^Bristol Sessions, I, 133. 

^®The result of the negotiations was the coming of John Fisk to 
Swansea in the office of Congregational minister, but so bitter was the 
feeling between the two sects in the town that trouble continued. One of 



527] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 73 

the town was divided, the Congregationalists forming the 
new parish." After the death of Luther there Avas a mo- 
mentary difficulty as Swansea's dispensation had related 
to liim only. The matter was settled by a vote of the gen- 
eral sessions in 1719 to accept his successor as minister of 
the town, and the selectmen, who had been summoned to 
state the case, were dismissed."^^ 

The affairs of Dartmouth and Tiverton during this 
same period represent the methods employed by the govern- 
ment in handling well defined Quaker communities. In 
Dartmouth the people were almost universally Quaker, the 
Congregational and Baptist societies being very small; in 
Tiverton, while the majority supported Quaker teaching, 
there were among the inhabitants many who shared the 
general characteristics of the eastern border of the bay. 
With their freedom in theological opinion which often kept 
them from allying themselves with any sect, there was a 
certain volatility in their make-up which occasionally car- 
ried them into some religious body and out again in a brief 
time. The S. P. G. in dealing with them met constant 
disappointment for it was long in learning that a crowded 
service here meant little real allegiance. These people 
were no less trying to the Quakers than to the Anglican 
and Congregational churches. 

The general sessions of October, 1698, which had at- 
tacked Swansea, took up the cases of both Dartmouth and 

the means taken by the Baptist selectmen to rid the town of Fisk was to 
issue a warrant to the constable "Requiring him in her Majties Name to 
warn John Fisk to depart the Town in fourteen days time &c." C. O. 5, 
865. The constable, knowing that Fisk belonged in none of the classes 
of undesirable persons included under the law of ejectment, appealed to 
the quarter sessions for advice. The latter discharged him from the duty 
of serving the warrant, summoned the selectmen and admonished them 
for this "Illegal & unpresidential" conduct. Bristol Sessions, II, 150, 151, 
155; Dudley to the Board of Trade, i Mar., 1708/9, C. O. 5, Q13, 114, nS; 
"Memorial of the ministers in Bristol County to the General Assembly," 
Oct. 171 1, Mass. Archives, XI, 385. 

'mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 180, ch. 22; 201, ch. 78; 249, ch. 50; 548, ch. 
78; 563, ch. 114. 

''^Bristol Sessions, III A, 59, 61 ; Backus, Baptists, I, 499. 



74 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [528 

Tiverton. Dartmouth, like Swansea, stated that she was 
provided with ministers already, naming two Quaker 
preachers of the town. Neither this nor Tiverton's answer 
was accepted, and both towns were ordered to supply 
themselves before the winter sessions.^'' 

For some time the relation between the court of gen- 
eral sessions and the towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton 
was little changed. Over and over they suffered present- 
ment and repeatedly sent answer that they were proi)erly 
supplied in the persons of the Quakers whom they named, 
basing their argument on the fact that nowhere in the law 
was it stated what was meant by orthodox.^'^ 

This state of affairs continued until the autumn of 
1703.^^ Bristol court then became exasperated and took a 
step which was significant. Relying upon the right which 
a recent law (1702) had given her to appoint special as- 
sessors, the court of general sessions decided to enforce the 
law of 1692 which gave her the power of appointing minis- 
ters to negligent towns. It was agreed that eighty pounds 
per annum be levied on Dartmouth and fifty on Tiverton 
for the support of ministers whom she should appoint. Not 
knowing suitable persons for these missions the court or- 
dered that a letter be written to the president and fellows 
of Harvard College and Mr, William Brattle of Cambridge 
for their advice.^^ 

Tho going so far as to take these measures the jus- 
tices now allowed the matter to slide^^ until April of 1706 
when they renewed their application to authority, includ- 

"^^ Bristol Sessions, I, 15. 

^°Ibid., I, 17, 19, 21. In January 1702 the selectmen of Tiverton pre- 
sented to Bristol sessions a paper pleading for "a Liberty of Conscience 
in the Exercise of Religion as a Priviledge granted by their Majestyes 
Charter and Recipting Several Passages out of the Province laws. Re- 
ferring to the Priviledges of Churches in the Quallifications choise and 
Settlement of ministers." Ibid., I, 38. 

^^Ibid., II, 20, 23, 47. 

»mid., II, 47. 

^mid., II, 93. 



529] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 75 

ing now the Boston ministers.^^ Their next meeting 
dispatched two of its members to Dartmouth and Tiverton 
to enquire for a place with some family where a minister 
might be entertained,^^ and upon receiving a most pessi- 
mistic report once more agreed to state the situation in 
Boston.^" 

The episode was at least making an impression on the 
ministerial circle in the capital town tho progress with 
effective measures was slow.^" Once more it was hoped 
that results might be gained by further legislation, and the 
act of November, 1706, now passed, went much further than 
any previous laws had done. The failure of Bristol ses- 
sions in dealing with her troublesome towns was to be 
obviated by bringing the General Court itself into the 
situation. After making the necessary orders on a delin- 
quent town and failing with results, the court of general 
sessions was now ordered to make report of its proceedings 
at the next session of the General Court, and the latter was 
not only to supply a minister to such town but was also to 
provide for his support by a sum added to the town's 
province tax. By concealing this amount within the coun- 
try rate the General Court expected to gain its purpose in 
towns which had never failed to remit their assessments. 
Bristol sessions in the following year gave Dartmouth and 
Tiverton one more chance, but when they still neglected 
her orders,^^ immediately agreed to carry the matter to the 
General Court. ^^ 

A complete report of the contest between Bristol 

^*Bristol Sessions, II, 98; Mass. Archives, XI, 231 ; Potter, First Cong. 
Sac. of New Bedford, loi. 

^^Bristol Sessions, II, 104. 

«<>Ibid., II, 107. 

s'^Increase Mather, in his Maintenance Due to those That Preach the 
Gospel, Boston, 1706, p. 57, writes, — "It is a doleful thing, that there should 
be Towns in New-England, able to Support the Preaching of the Gospel, 
and yet not one man found therein willing to give Entertainment to a 
Minister of Christ." 

^^Bristol Sessions, II, 113. 

^^Ibid., II, 116; Mass. Archives, XI, 231; Potter, First Cong. Soc. of 
New Bedford, App. A, 102. 



76 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [530 

sessions and the towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton, with 
an elaborate petition, was now submitted to the assembly. 
An appeal was made by the latter to the fellows of the 
college,^^ and before another year had gone by a minister 
had been sent to each town, Joseph Marsh^^ to Tiverton and 
Samuel Hunt^^ to Dartmouth. '^^ Their regular appoint- 
ments were made in the court session of the following 
summer when their salaries were voted with the under- 
standing that the sums were to be added to the province 
rates of the towns.^* The opposition raised by Dartmouth 
and Tiverton upon their discovery of what had occurred 
was one of the first and most important steps taken by the 
New England Quakers in their struggle against the Massa- 
chusetts ecclesiastical laws. In spite of petitions from a 
Dartmouth town meeting^^ and the Dartmouth Monthly 
Meeting of the Friends^^ the matter was pushed forward 
by the authorities. Within a short time both towns were 
in arrears of taxes and their assessors in gaol at Bristol.^'^ 
Succeeding events in both Dartmouth and Tiverton 
show how the General Court was forced to compromise ii 
spite of her legislation of 1706. Samuel Hunt whom the 
court had sent to Dartmouth proved to be a man of unusual 
breadth in his relation to the town. He refused to have 

^oPotter, First Cong. Soc. of Neiv Bedford, App. A, loo; Mass. Ar- 
chives, XI, 230-231, contains the original papers. 

^'^Mass Archives, XI, 320. 

^-Old Dartmouth Hist. Soc. Colls., No. 3, p. 9. 

®2Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 17, note. Bristol sessions, 
tho now relieved of responsibility, continued to interest itself in the 
delinquent towns. It was Tiverton which reminded the court "that the 
Case Reffering to a mister was laid before the great and generall Court 
and therefore thought it hard measure to be presented & sent for from 
Court to Court." The general sessions saw the justice of this plea and 
decided that the "prsons & Case by dismist till the mind of the sd great 
and generall Assembly be ffurther known." The same was decided in the 
case ef Dartmouth. Bristol Sessions, II, 128. 

^*Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 9, ch. 8; II, 269; IX, 17, ch. 36. 

^sPotter, First Cong Soc. of New Bedford, App. A, 104. 

^^Dartmouth Mo. M., 43. 

^''Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 47, ch. 124; Dartmouth Mo. M., 46-48. 



531] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 77 

the laws enforced on Dartmouth for his advantage, main- 
taining constantly that he was a missionary and as such 
should be regularly paid by the province.^^ For this reason 
the diflQculties so serious in 1708 subsided in subsequent 
years. 

The General Court complied with his request and, 
beginning with a grant of fifteen pounds to finish the 
meeting house in Dartmouth,^^ voted him various payments 
of fifteen or twenty pounds between 1709 and 1716. ^^'^ A 
large grant of one hundred pounds made in 1722 upon a 
petition from the orthodox inhabitants for an annual salary 
for Hunt, and added by the General Court to the province 
rate of the town upset this arrangement and became the 
occasion of a long and obstinate battle. 

The chief difference between these events in Dartmouth 
and the corresponding occurrences in Tiverton was that the 
General Court, in spite of repeated efforts, was never able 
to keep a Congregational minister long in the latter town. 
In 1710 twenty-one pounds were voted from the province 
treasury for the brief services of two men whom the General 
Court had sent to Tiverton,^^^ but upon an appeal from the 
orthodox inhabitants for a further appointment,^'-- the 
assembly merely ordered the ministers of the neighboring 
towns to preach at Tiverton during the summer at 
twenty shillings a Sunday, paid from the public treas- 
yj,y 10 3 When in October the order was repeated, an 
earnest expostulation came from Samuel Danforth, min- 
ister at Taunton, who foresaw the difficulties of travel- 
ing to Tiverton in the winter and urged tlie appoint- 
ment of a resident minister on the ground that a 

^s Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, 20, 25, App. A, no; Mass. 
Prov. Laws, IX, 42, ch. 112. 

^^Mass. Archives, XI, 293. 

^^'^Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 109, ch. 162; 114. ch. 175; 224, ch. 153; 434 
ch. 123; 492, ch. 95; X, 177, ch. 56; II, 269; Potter, First Cong. Soc. of 
Nezv Bedford, App. A, 106-107. 

^'^''■Mass. Archives, XI, 320; Mass. Prov. Lazvs, IX, ch. 168. 

^^-Mass. Archives, XI, 293. 

''-^^Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 70, ch. 42; II, 269. 



78 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [532 

meeting house was already partly built.^^^ Thereupon a 
man was secured at twenty shillings a week,^*'^ but his 
congregation was meager and his stay brief.^"*' In 1712 
the General Court ordered twenty-five pounds for the min- 
istry at Tiverton or "in proportion for such part of the 
year as they are supplied with a learned, orthodox Minis- 
^gp ?no7 |j^^^ ^ijp inducement accomplished little. The fol- 
lowing years saw only fruitless attempts by the general 
sessions and the assembly to carry out the law, for cajolery, 
threats and further ecclesiastical legislation proved of no 
avail. ^^^ While it was as early as 1717 that the General 
Court voted seventy pounds from the public treasury for 
the support of a minister^^'^ whom the general sessions had 
recently voted to secure,"*' it was not until 1722 that this 
sum was actually added, as in the case of Dartmouth, to 
the town's country rate. The resistance made by the Qua- 
kers in behalf of the assessors of the two towns, imprisoned 
for failure to assess these sums, won an Order in Council 
on their belmlf and was the indirect cause of the first local 
exemption legislation. 

^^*Mass. Archives, XI, 304. Danforth made another plea for Tiver- 
ton in the memorial presented by the ministers of Bristol county to the 
general assembly in 171 1. Mass. Archives, XI, 385. 

''■'^^Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 131, ch. 42; 166, ch. 141. 

loeperry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 95. 

'^^''Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 249, ch. 54. 

^^^Bristol Sessions, II, 203; III A, 4, 7, 10; III B, 9, 302, 311; Mass. 
Prov. Laws, X, 177, ch. 57. In 1724 the Bristol court was wearily 
agreeing to ask the general assembly if it might not accept the Quaker, 
Joseph Wanton of Tiverton, as the minister of the town. Bristol Ses- 
sions, III B, 9. 

^'^^Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 572, ch. 140. The representatives of the 
S. P. G. felt great resentment at such proceedings. "They are endeavour- 
ing from Boston to Introduce an Independent Minister to Tiverton. I 
should have been very glad they had been prevented by a Missionary 
from England and I hope it is not yet too late." Honeyman to the 
Secretary, 15 May, 1718, 5". P. G. Letters, B XIII, 503-504. The inefficacy 
of these attempts is expressed in an exaggerated statement in another 
of Honeyman's letters. "In Litle Compton there is an Independent 
Teacher, and now and then one in Freetown, but in Tivertown never Any." 
Honeyman to the Secretary, 7 Sept., 1727. 5', P. G. Papers, B I, No. 222. 

^^^Bristol Sessions, III A, 33. 



533] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 79 

In Swansea and Dartmouth the court of general ses- 
sions of Bristol county and the Massachusetts General 
Court were meeting the opposition of well defined religious 
bodies fighting for a principle; in Tiverton the same was 
true in less degree. In the towns of Attleboro, Little 
Compton and Freetown, which Bristol sessions included in 
her attack of October 1698, the justices found themselves 
baffled by a lack of religious enthusiasm united with an 
ardent spirit of independence rather than any strong heter- 
odox opinions. In the course of events the Massachusetts 
authorities learned that if they took these unusual condi- 
tions into consideration and modified their regular system 
more could be done in such a place than in a strongly anti- 
Congregational community. The settlement of the ministry 
in these towns was an economic and social rather than a 
religious question. 

The unwillingness of the inhabitants of Freetown to be 
interfered with in a matter where pocketbooks were in- 
volved is suggested in their answer to Bristol court's 
warning in 1698. The "Poverty & inability" of the town 
were the alleged causes for their failure to comply with 
the law; and in the following year "their poor low & 
scattered Condition was one Keason (notwithstanding 
their Endeavors for divers years past) why they Could not 
obtaine a minister.""^ 

For the next few years Freetown gave sufficient evi- 
dence of attempts to settle a minister to avoid presentment 
and in 1704 did secure William Way to serve as minister 
and schoolmaster;"- but various facts indicate that he was 
not "learned and orthodox." He agreed to accept from his 
parish a voluntary contribution rather than a public main- 
tenance and failed to receive the necessary approbation of 
Samuel Danforth of Taunton." ^ In the meantime the 
preaching of the first missionaries of the S. P. G. had made 
an impression in Freetown. Of two important things the 

^'^^Bristol Sessions, I, 15. 18. 
i^-Fowler, Fall River, 39. 
^^^Bristol Sessions, II, 113. 



80 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [534 

people were convinced: that a member of the Church of 
England could not be taxed by any other ecclesiastical 
body and that a missionary sent to them from England 
would have to be recognized by the standing order. More- 
over he would need no great financial support, — at least no 
regular legal assessment, — since he would have a salary 
from the Venerable Society. The majority of the towns- 
men accordingly were induced to declare for the Church 
of England, a town vote to this effect was passed and a 
letter written to Samuel Myles of King's Chapel, Boston, 
urging him to forward their declaration to the Bishop of 
London. In the following months Freetown turned aside 
various warnings from the county court on the ground 
that she was waiting to hear from England.^^* In the 
meantime matters were not pushed by the general sessions 
as the justices had come to the conclusion that orthodoxy 
could never be forced upon Freetown without some assist- 
ance from the public treasury."^ 

That such a recommendation was to be made to the 
General Court may have reached the ears of a minority in 
Freetown who were led by the Congregationalists. Per- 
haps aware of the money grants which Dartmouth and 
Tiverton had already received, this group petitioned the 
General Court in 1709,^^^ and were supported in their 
appeal by Samuel Danforth of Taunton.^^'^ The wording 
of Danforth's communication indicates that he recognized 

'^'^'^Bristol Sessions, II, 131, 136, 140, 141. 

^^^Ibid., II, 141. 

^^^Mass. Archives, XI, 291. The names of the more important free- 
holders of Freetown are absent from the list of signers of this petition. 

^^^"Some of them," Danforth wrote, "give Encouragem't that if they 
could have twenty pounds allowed to a Preacher among them for two or 
three yeer, they should & would Rayse among themselves so much more 
as would be Competent to subsist a minister there & severall who decline to 
sign the Petition out of a little humor, Yett promise they will do theyr parts 
Equivalent in proportion to any of the Petitioners for subsisting a min- 
ister whensoever this Court shall send one among them : I do humbly 
pray that this Court would make a tryall of their Ingenuity by allowing 
twenty pounds for one yeer to such a minister whom this Court shall 
appoint for them." Mass. Archives, XI, 304. 



535] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 81 

conditions in Freetown were so peculiar that some special 
dispensation might have to be granted if a Congregational 
minister was to be settled in the place. The support of 
those withholding their names from Freetown's petition 
might be gained by 3'ielding ''forced maintenance" and al- 
lowing the town to pay the minister by voluntary contri- 
butions as it had done in the case of William Way. 

This suggestion was accepted and proved successful. 
Joseph Avery who was sent to Freetown received in addi- 
tion to the province grants"^ only the voluntary pledges 
of his hearers, and on this basis was able to win the support 
of many of the townsmen."^ After his departure the town 
lapsed once more into dissension^-'^ which was only in- 
creased by the advent in 1715 of Thomas Craghead who 
was sent by the General Court.^^^ Of an impetuous and 
domineering character he was unwilling to let matters rest 
as they had in Avery's time, but went in January, 1718, 
and procured an act of Bristol court to compel Freetown 
to pay him a salary of sixty-five pounds a year, beginning 
on the day that he was chosen minister.^^- The older 

ii^In addition to the twenty pounds allotted in 1709 the General Court 
voted at the end of a year a sum "after the rate of twenty pounds per 
annum to Mr. Joseph Avery, for each Sabbath, he hath or shall preach at 
Freetown." Mass. Prov. Laws, IX, 166, ch. 142; 195, ch. 63; 249, ch. 53; 
299, ch. 52; 361, ch. 44; 409, ch. 67; 502, ch. 124; 561, ch. 107. 

"^"^^Mass. Archives, XI, 369. 

'^-^Bristol Sessions, II, 214, 219, 220; III B, 43 (insert), 37 (insert)," 
43, 63, 64. 

"The Conditions of several Churches, calls for my most exquisite 
Care, to gett them delivered out of their Temptation. 

Moreover I must gett that Matter well settled, the ordaining of 
Ministers whom we send unto places destitute of the Gospel ; and em- 
powering of them to act as Ministers. Freetown particularly should be 
accommodated in this matter." 7 Mass. Hist. Colls., VIII, 232, Cotton 
Mather's Diary, 23 Aug., 1713. 

i-^Stewart to Nicholson, 12 Feb., 1719/20, S. P. G. Letters, A XIV, 162. 

^--Backus, Baptists, I, 500. Neal observed {New England, II, 250- 
251) of the Massachusetts customs that "in the Countries, the Minister 
contracts with his People for a certain Stipend, which is usually but 
small, and very indifferently paid. The Minister indeed has his Remedy 
at Law against Defaulters, but if he should sue any of his Parishioners, 
he must bid adieu to his Preaching at that Place." 



82 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [536 

method of handling Freetown with leniency was now 
abandoned and later events show with what little success. 

The money demanded by Craghead was assessed in 
1717, 1718, and 1719, tho the constables failed to collect it. 
They were then imprisoned, and not released in spite of 
appeals to both Bristol court and the general assembly .^^^ 
In March, 1720, Craghead, determined to gain some part 
of his salary still in arrears, applied to the General Court 
for certain sums against the three constables. This appli- 
cation resulted in a court order to the justices of the gen- 
eral sessions of the peace for the county of Bristol to 
grant out warrants of distress to the sheriff to distrain 
the goods or estates of these defective collectors.^^^ Altho 
Craghead soon severed his connection with Freetown, his 
attempt to gain his unpaid salary extended into the sum- 
mer of 1723. While his efforts were never crowned with 
success he was backed constantly by the justices of Bristol 
county and by the general assembly of the province. ^^^ 

The chief result of the later policy of the government 
in dealing with Freetown was the alliance of many of the 
opponents of "forced maintenance" with the Quakers or 
with neighboring Baptists both of whom stood for their 
primary principle, — the separation of church and state. 
In 1729, 1730, 1732, and 1733 Freetown was presented for 
lack of a minister,^^^ and when in 1747 a Congregational 
preacher was actually settled in the place, it was with the 
express understanding between himself and the people that 
he should not "directly nor indirectly take advantage of 
ye Laws of this Province to get a salary settled on me in 
ye town of Freetown, but look for and expect my support 
by the free will offering of ye People. "^^''^ 

The conditions in Little Compton slightly resembled 
those in Freetown ; for altho there was an orthodox society 
there at an early date, it was long unable to maintain 

'^-^Bristol Sessions, III B, 64 65; House Journal, 17 19, 12, 13, 18, 23, 24. 

'^-'^Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 70, ch. 156. 

'^"^Ibid., X, 291, ch. 12; 305, ch. 42; 330, ch. 119. 

'^-^Bristol Sessions, III B, 122, 129, 132, 198, 212. 

i2"Fowler, Fall River, 43; Hurd, Bristol County, 297. 



537] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 



83 



itself without careful supervision by the general sessions. 
In 1699, in response to an appeal from this church, the 
court gave the town a legal order for raising forty pounds 
to be paid to the minister. When the selectmen failed to 
assess this sum they were fined forty shillings each.^^s The 
same occurred with their successors in 1700 and again in 
1701.^2^ I^ ^rr^^ this situation at Little Compton which 
was chiefly responsible for the legislation of 1702, giving 
the county court the right of appointing a special board 
of assessors if the town oflflcers neglected their duty. In 
the case of Little Compton this measure was resorted to ;^3^ 
but progress was now blocked by the constables who failed 
to collect the sums assessed.^^^ A compromise was finally 
reached which lasted until the time of the exemption 
legislation.^^2 

The difficulties which Attleboro encountered in eccle- 
siastical affairs were due to two causes, her semi-frontier 
location and her close relation to the most unorthodox 
settlements of New England. From 1698 to 1708 her 
affairs often figured in the business of Bristol sessions. At 
first the excuse given was her "low, smale & Divided Con- 
dition." Later she reported repeatedly that she was taking 
steps to provide herself with a minister as ordered, but 
found it difficult to attract anyone on account of her pov- 
erty and small extent.^^^ Final success came after an 
appeal to the General Court, for the latter responded to 
Attleboro's petition by reannexing to her authority some 

^^^Bristol Sessions, I, 19, 21. 

^^^Ibid., I, 25, 27, 36; 11, 4, 14- 

^^^Ibid., II, 25. 

^^'^Ibid., II, 28. At this point the constables were sued by the 
treasurers. C. O. 5, 864. 

^^^-Bristol Sessions, II, 90. One influence brought to bear upon the 
settlement of a minister at Little Compton was the Society for the 
Propagation of Religion, patterned upon the similar societies in England. 
Edward Bromfield to the Secretary, 24 Feb., 1707. S. P. G. Letters 

A III, 178. 

^^^Bristol Sessions, I, 15, 17; H, 93, ii3, 116. 



84 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [538 

fourteen families which had previously been transferred 
to another town.^^^ 

The main structure of the church-state system of 
Massachusetts in the early eighteenth century can be 
traced in the provincial ecclesiastical laws, but only by a 
study of their enforcement can one obtain a clear idea of 
church life in the individual town and hence of the actual 
working of the church-state system. In the above study 
two facts present themselves. One of these is the tendency 
on the part of the General Court to assume responsibility 
in ecclesiastical affairs ; the second, the increasing strength 
of hostile elements. The appearance of the two side by 
side suggests that the former was after all a technical 
rather than a real increase in power; but so long as it 
lasted it was an important part of the Massachusetts 
church-state system. In relation to the various towns and 
precincts, existing as ecclesiastical units, the authority of 
the General Court was greater than appeared on the face 
of any act. By law a minister was chosen by his church 
with the approval of the town, and bargained with the 
latter for his salary. But the General Court took a con- 
spicuous place in the appointment and removal of minis- 
ters as well as in naming a choice when two were offering 
claims. It was often called upon to settle disputes regard- 
ing the method of paying his salary and the disposition of 
the ministry lands when new precincts were formed. The 
appeals came from the towns or precincts concerned, from 
ecclesiastical councils, or from county courts. For the 
towns the General Court decided whether circumstances 
warranted the formation of a new precinct, and if so, what 
arrangements should be made. The proper location of the 
meeting house was always an important matter as this 
building formed the civic center of the community. From 
church councils came to Boston various ecclesiastical mat- 
ters, principally relating to the choice of ministers. From 
the county courts came the problem of dealing with delin- 
quent towns and town officials. The assembly might sanc- 

i^'^Daggett, Attlehorongh, 226 and note. 



539] THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE 85 

tion or reverse council or county court orders. Finally 
the Great and General Court, by holding the purse strings 
of the province, was able in great measure to enforce her 
own commands. In the frontier towns the settlement of 
the ministry was so largely an economic matter that a 
vote of money from the public treasury was all that was 
required; while a money grant was the first means taken 
to establish orthodoxy in towns actively hostile to the 
Congregational system. 

Only when such measures were utterly ineffective 
because of organized opposition did the General Court 
begin a policy of increasing her own authority by direct 
legislation. Assuming certain functions which had at first 
belonged only to the towns themselves and had been later 
placed in the hands of the general sessions, the court took 
upon itself the duty of procuring a minister for a negligent 
town and of paying his salary, the money apparently to 
come from the public treasury but being actually added to 
the town's province rate. While on the Avay toward this 
policy of coercion the assembly found itself obliged on 
more than one occasion to alter its scheme of ecclesiastical 
control in places where the opposition formed a majority 
of the inhabitants. Hence in several towns of Massachu- 
setts the early years of the eighteenth century saw the 
voluntary system in use for the support of the ministry, 
and in one of these towns a Baptist preacher was accepted 
as the minister of the place. The assumption of greater 
powers on the part of the General Court with its evidence 
of a determination to get results forced the outside ele- 
ments to become aggressive. The ecclesiastical legislation 
was running by the side of, but in a losing race with, the 
growing independence of the dissenters. We shall next 
see the means whereby the opposing forces accomplished 
their ends, carrying the struggle beyond the limits of 
Massachusetts and involving various interests across the 
seas. The contest at this point becomes therefore a part 
of a larger movement, touching English politics and Brit- 
ish colonial policy. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Quakers and Their Allies. 

The assault upon the ecclesiastical system of eight- 
eenth century Massachusetts was made by three religious 
bodies, — the Baptists, the Society of Friends, and the 
Church of England. In the opposition which was raised 
the Anglican Church stood aloof from the others, showing 
little desire to fraternize with the sects which were still 
more or less despised in England, and basing most of its 
arguments on the fact of its own superiority as the estab- 
lished church in the mother country. The Baptists and 
Quakers very early joined forces on the common ground of 
disapproval of church establishment of any sort or any 
legal recognition of one sect over another. During the 
latter half of the century the Baptists were the stronger 
of these two groups and the leaders ; before 1740 the Quak- 
ers held this position. The exchange in influence was 
merely the accompaniment of the exchange in numerical 
strength which the two bodies experienced in the second 
quarter of the eighteenth century. In their decline the 
New England Quakers were merely suffering the fate which 
early came to the whole society in both the old and the 
new world. In their growth the Baptists of New England 
gained something at the expense of the Quakers but far 
more at the expense of the CongTegationalists themselves, 
for a large number of the strict, "separate" churches which 
dated from the Great Awakening became Baptist. It has 
never been fully appreciated that in the years before 1740 
the Quakers were doing as large a work as the Baptists 
carried on after that date. Such would not be the case if 
the Quakers had produced an historian. It is true that at 
one time Moses Brown of Providence, contemporary and 
friend of Isaac Backus,^ was contemplating a history of 

^Isaac Backus, The History of New England with special reference 
to the denomination of Christians called Baptists, 3 vols., 1777-1796. 

86 



541] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 87 

New England Quakerism, but he never went farther than 
to collect some material.- The situation was not to be 
clianged by the typical New England historians of the 
nineteenth century. Interested primarily in those ele- 
ments in the community which were represented in the 
General Court they underestimated the influence of other 
forces.^ 

The Quakers of the eighteenth century had passed 
beyond the period of active persecution and now enjoyed 
both in England and in the colonies a power quite out of 
proportion to their numerical strength. This influence 
was due to their organization in a great body, strong and 

^Among the Moses Brozvn Papers (XVIII, 55), is a paper entitled 
"Materials toward the History of Friends in New England." It contains 
a series of excerpts from the records of the New England Yearly 
Meeting relating to the first settling by the Yearly Meeting of the various 
quarterly and monthly meetings. Moses Brown also spent some time 
in 1782 gathering material relating to the proceedings in England 
in 1723-1724 when the affair of the imprisoned assessors of Dartmouth 
and Tiverton was before the Board of Trade and the Privy Council. 
Moses Brown Papers, portfolio entitled "Papers regarding imprisonment 
of Quakers." 

^Comments on the Massachusetts Quakers of the early eighteenth 
century are relegated by Palfrey to a footnote in connection with other 
events of 1724. "From this time," Palfrey concludes, "Quakerism in 
Massachusetts was unmolested and insignificant." Nezv England, IV, 449, 
note. 

In recent years some good local work has been done, among which 
should be mentioned William J. Potter, The first congregational society 
in Nezv Bedford, Mass: its history as illustrative of ecclesiastical evolu- 
tion. New Bedford, 1889, which prints many documents; also Edward T. 
Tucker's contributions to the history of the Friends in the vicinity of 
Dartmouth. Leonard B. Ellis, History of Nezif Bedford and its vicinity, 
i602-i8g2, Syracuse, 1892, discusses in Chapter 2 the Quakers of the 
whole region, while Chapter 27 gives an abstract of Potter and an 
article by Tucker on the Friends' Society. More general accounts of 
Massachusetts Quakers appear in Henry W. Foote, Annals of King's 
Chapel, Boston, 1882, and Abner C. Goodell, "Notes on Quakers," in 
Pubs, of the Col. Soc. of Mass., Vol. I, Transactions, 1895, 140. These are 
brief and are concerned merely with the Quaker in his relation to the 
state church. A broader treatment may be found in Rufus M. Jones, 
The Quakers in the American Colonics, London, 1911. 



88 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [542 

centralized, still warm with religious enthusiasm, and in- 
cluding among its members many influential men. The 
weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings of New England, 
centering in the great yearly meeting at Rhode Island, 
were only the repetition of the same organization in the 
Quaker colonies and in England. Communication between 
the various yearl}^ meetings was constant and the London 
Yearly Meeting took a supervising interest in all.^ The 
"Meeting for Sufferings" which was organized in London 
received the complaints not only of all the smaller meetings 
in England, but from Quakerism wherever it had been 
established. 

The method used by the English Quakers of recording 
their sufferings with the purpose of carrying them before 
local meetings and thence to London was a well recognized 
custom in New England several jears before the date of 
the province charter. In Massachusetts these sufferings 
were of three kinds : — fines and distraint or imprisonment 
for (1) refusal to train with the militia or go with a mili- 
tary expedition; (2) refusal to take any oath of office or 
for service on a jury; (3) refusal to pay the rate for the 
Congregational minister or to assess or collect such a rate 
in the office of selectman, assessor, or constable. With the 
last mentioned we are chiefly concerned, as it alone affected 
the individual churches in their relation to the civil gov- 
ernment. 

As early as 1677 the Salem Monthly Meeting proposed 
that "Care might be taken in je buseness relating to friends 
Sufferings" which were to "be recorded, and Coppies 

*The annual interchange of letters between London and Newport 
early became a feature of the New England Yearly Meeting. Among the 
men appointed to the work of transcribing and signing the "epistle to 
London" were the most prominent members of the society. They were 
regularly asked to give an account of "truth" among the New England 
Friends and receive whatever returns came from across the water. The 
letter when written was read in the whole meeting for approval and 
ordered sent with an account of "sufferings" enclosed. A'^. E. Yr. M., 
passim. 



543] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 89 

thereof sent to Eodisland."^ The recommendation had 
probably come from the Yearly Meeting which has no 
extant records for so early a period. In 1683 the Yearly 
Meeting desired 

that due Care be taken by friends in their respective meetings to record 
all their Sufferings, and by whome they Suffered, the time when, the 
manner how, and the Cause why they Suffered, and to bring them to the 
next Yearly meeting att Rodisland.^ 

The method here recommended for recording sufferings 
was the one adopted by the monthly meetings throughout 
New England, they communicating it to their weekly meet- 
ings, Tho an occasional reminder proved necessary,^ the 
yearly reports were dul}^ carried to Rhode Island and 
thence dispatched with the yearly epistle to the London 
Friends.^ 

The next step was taken in 1692 when the Yearly 
Meeting arranged for a special gathering on certain days, 
early in the morning, before the time for the public meeting 
for worship, at which representatives from the several 
meetings were to bring in their accounts of sufferings "if 
Aney Bee."^ At these little special "meetings for suffer- 
ings" it became customary to call the roll by monthly 
meetings at which time the reports were given and 
recorded.^" 

In 1701 the Yearly Meeting drew up a list of "Some 
Queries to Bee made at Quarterly and monthly meetings," 
covering all phases of Quaker life and doctrine, for the 
purpose of bringing the weaker communities into line. 

^Saleiii Mo. M., 2. 

^Ibid., 2. 

''R. I. Mo. M., I, 89; Salem Quart. M., I, 19; N. E. Yr. M., 98, in, 123. 

^The first item of this nature entered in the records of the Yearly 
Meeting is as follows : — "At a generall yearly mans meeting at Rhod 
island At ye house of William Codington the 14 day of ye 4 month 
j686 . . . It is . . . agreed yt ffriends in their seaverall Respective monthly 
meeting Boock Record their sufferings & bring them in to this meeting 
yearly to be Recorded here and sent for Ingland." N. E. Yr. M., 3. 

^N. E. Yr. M., 5-6. 

"See for example the report of the Yearly Meeting for 1701. .V. E. 
Yr. M., 15. 



90 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [544 

Among these were three relating to sufferings : — 

9 Are friends Cearfull to Bring in thear Sufferings for Truths Testa- 
money, yt theye may Bee Recorded. 

ID Wheather fifriends doe Keepe up Truths Testamoney ; agaynst 
Bearing of amies & Trayning; & Things of that nature — 

II. How doe are fifriends Keep Theare testamoney to ye Truth in 
Refusing to paye to ye maintainance of ye heyerling minestry.^"^ 

Five years later, feeling that the collecting and record- 
ing of sufferings might well have more attention, the 
Yearly Meeting appointed a committee of two or three 
prominent men for each of the four quarterly meetings in 
existence at that time, to handle the matter and bring in 
exact accounts. 

ffriends are Desird, [ran the resolution,] to take Ceare in Bringing in 
theare Sufiferings to Each Quarterly meeting & take notis of ye Daye of 
ye month & the yeare, and also ye name of ye person that grants flforth 
the Warant and the names of ye persons that takes awaye theare goods 
and the use fifor what it is taken wheather Priest or others with the name 
of ye place wheare the fifriends Liveth and all ye persons above named 
and the some Demanded & ye vallew of what is taken. ^^ 

This increasing solicitude of the Yearly Meeting was shown 
also in the purchase of a book for the recording of suffer- 
ings and the appointment of an official recorder.^^ 

While the Quakers insisted strongly upon resistance 
to the payment of taxes in certain cases, they were, on the 
whole, law-abiding citizens, the various meetings using 
their influence to accomplish this result. The Rhode Island 
Quarterly Meeting was in 1705 much distressed by com- 
plaint that certain Friends "Eastward" refused to pay any 
public taxes to the government on the ground that a great 
part of the money was used for war. A paper was drawn 
up on the subject and travelling Friends were asked to 
urge Hampton and Dover people to pay the rates.^^ 

Resistance to taxation for an established church was 
one of the first rules of the Quaker body. Recording of 

"iV. E. Yr. M., 19; R. I. Mo. M., I, 184; R. I. Quart. M., 46, 47. 
"iV. E. Yr. M., 31-32. 
^^Ibid., 33. 

^*/?. /. Quart. M., 38, 39. Another case appears in Dartmouth Mo. M., 
47, 48. 



545] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 91 

sufferings was very early an important duty of the indi- 
vidual Friend. The first record we have of a deliberate 
decision on the part of a New England meeting to raise 
the question of the legal right of the government to exact 
ministerial taxes, belongs to the Monthly Meeting held at 
Lynn on January 10, 1697/98. At this time a letter was 
written to London describing the sufferings of the Quakers 
in that region, — more intense than in the southern county 
of Bristol, because the Quaker element was here more com- 
pletely overpowered by the standing order, — and inquiring 
"Whether the Presbiterian Clergye have p»ower to sue for 
Tythes." The London Meeting for Sufferings which took 
up this case agreed that the correspondents for New Eng- 
land should investigate the matter, to discover whether 
any laws which might be made in New England could 
empower the "presbiterians to sue for Tythes and cast 
people into prison,"^^ Application was immediately made 
in the form of queries to two English lawyers, for a legal 
statement of opinion.^^ Their reply is important as the 
first such statement obtained by either Quaker or Anglican 
body in its struggle against the Massachusetts church-state 
system. 

Query i Whether Presbiterian Ministers not being Inducted accord- 
ing to the Cannons of the Church of England, have power to sue for, 
Distrain and cast into prison, Persons yt refuse to pay the Tax of the 
Country made in January, 1693. in the Towne of Lyn in New England. 

Answer Unless there is a Law in the Country Confirmed in England 
to Justifye it, I conceive they cannot; for a Presbiterian Minister is a 
Person not taken of in our Law, and if he was the Law of England doth 
not warrant such proceedings; I find by the Warrant to the Constable his 
behaviour in this Case — 

Q : 2 Which way ye Person so Prosecuted distrained or Imprisoned 
may be Relieved agst the said Law or Prosecution aforesaid. 

Ans : The Person so prosecuted If his goods were distrained may 
bring a Replevin or Action of Trover for Recovery of them : If he is 
Imprisoned he may bring an Action of flfalse Imprisonmt or an Habeous 
Corpus ye Cause of his Committment appearing on return thereof, a Judge 
ought to discharge him his Committmt being Illegal. 

^^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XII, 192-193. 
^^Ibid., XII, 224, 230, 241, 247. 



92 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [546 

Q : 3 Whether any of the Country Laws of the Said New England 
made by their select men yt are repugnant to the Laws of England can be 
Lawfully Imposed upon the Inhabitants thereof. 

Answer I Presume by their select men, they mean their Assembly, 
If so I take it yt no Law yt is made by them yt is repugnant to the Law 
of England will bind the Inhabitants Unless it be Transferred to England 
and there confirmed. 

J. Scroope 
I am of the same opinion with Mr. Scroope 
Tho : Newton — ^'' 

On the strength of this statement the London Friends 
now wrote to the New Englanders urging them to try a 
test case and if local judgment proved unsatisfactory, to 
carry the suit to the proper court in England. ^^ Here was 
the first suggestion of the later appeal to the King in 
Council. Further encouragement along the same line soon 
came to the New England Yearly Meeting from Governor 
Bellomont. The Lynn meeting, not yet ready for a test 
case, carried its difficulties to the Yearly Meeting of 1699, 
which appointed a committee to "consider & Draw up an 
Accot of frinds Sufferinges at Linn & Yarmouth or eals- 
where in order to present to ye Governer Bellomont to 
obtaine Reeleefe from him.-'^*^ His reply was to call the 
Quakers' attention to the fact that the laws of which they 
complained had been confirmed in England so that he had 
no authority in the matter "without order from thence." 
He did however give the Quakers to understand that he 
would send their petition to England and obtain some 
answer for them.^*^ 

Altho this petition never reached England, Bellomont 
had made a contribution in his statement that the Massa- 
chusetts law liad had the approval of the crown. It re- 
mained for the London Friends to prove this statement to 
their own satisfaction and this they did through the work 

^'^Book of Cases, II, 22-23. 
^^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XII, 235-236. 
i9A^. E. Yr. M., 12. 

-^Epistles Rec'd, I, 301-303, Epistle from the N. E. Yr. M., 1699; 
Loud. Yr. M., II, 302. 



547] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 93 

of investigating committees.^^ Richard Diamond and Wil- 
liam Crouch, who visited the Plantation Office at the 
request of the meeting, reported the existence of the law 
of 1692,-- and John Field, who was shortly afterwards sent 
to discover whether the law had received royal approba- 
tion, reported that it had been confirmed by the King in 
Council.^^ 

Nothing daunted, the English Quakers determined to 
proceed farther, first taking the precautionary measure of 
recommending to all meetings in the various colonies that 
they watch their respective legislatures and give timely 
notice of the passage of a law if they wished to have it 
disallowed in England.^^ In regard to Massachusetts the 
London Friends observed that it might not be in accord- 
ance with the Massachusetts charter to "force maintenance 
to a Nonconforming Ministry dissenting from ye Church 
of England." If the New England Quakers were convinced 
that this was the case thej^ Avere urged to approach the 
governor once more and remind him of this fact, in order 
that he might inform the Privy Council against the allow- 
ance of further legislation. In the meantime it would be 
well for them to draw up a petition directly from them- 
selves to the king that the English Friends might solicit 
for them and have a stop put to further legislation.-^ 

While the London Friends were waiting for a reply 
from NcAv England, they were investigating the various 
questions which had recently presented themselves. Wil- 
liam Crouch brought from the Board of Trade information 
of a fact which they were already suspecting: that when 
once a law made in the plantations had been allowed in 
England there was no way of repealing it "but by the 
Assembly that made it." The meeting which received 
this statement appointed a committee to discover whether 
the law which was under consideration did "agree with the 

^'^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIV, 224-225, 272. 

^^Ibid., XIV, 229-230. 

^^Ibid., XIV, 277. 

^-*Ibid., XIV, 277-278. 

'-^Epistles Sent, I. 367-368, Epistle to N. E., 1700. 



94 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [548 

Original Patten or Governours Instructions."^^ Three 
months later William Crouch appeared with the Massa- 
chusetts charter, secured at the Plantation Office, and it 
was filed by the Meeting for Sui¥erings with the laws of 
1692.2' Convinced by their perusal of the charter that 
laws for the support of one form of worship were not in 
accordance with this document and that they should be 
disallowed on this basis, they wrote a further letter to 
New England in which the Massachusetts Quakers were 
again urged to keep watch of their assembly and make 
protests before it was too late.^^ 

The first suggestion made by the English Friends in 
their letters of 1700, — that a petition to the king be drawn, 
— was followed by the Quakers of Lynn, who in the follow- 
ing year produced a timid representation. It was approved 
in the New England Yearly Meeting and dispatched to 
London.2^ The Massachusetts Quakers had not yet grasped 
the full significance of allowance by the crown of colonial 
legislation and made the simple prayer that they miglit be 
eased of the imposition of tithes.^^ In recent months the 
London Meeting for Sufferings had been gaining a clear 
idea of colonial administration and recognized the fruit- 
lessness of such a petition unless new legislation was before 
the Privy Council. Its only act, therefore, was the ap- 
pointment of a committee to approach the man who should 
be made governor of New England and ask his moderation 
toward the Friends there.^^ Other matters of importance 
to Quakers were already occupying the attention of the 
London meetings and crowded out consideration of this case 
for the present. The sufferings of the Lynn Quakers did 
not again appear as a separate issue until 1705. 

The assurance with which the English Quakers made 
promises of effective support in the case of further ecclesi- 

26LonJ, M. for Sufferings, XIV, 281-282. 

27/fcirf., XIV, passim; XV, 87, 93, 106. 

^^Ibid., XIV, 350, 353, 360; XV, 38. 

29Ar. E. Yr. M., is; Epistles Rec'd, I, 345, Epistle to London, 1701. 

30This petition appears in full in Epistles Rec'd, I, 346. 

^'^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XV, 184. 



549] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 95 

astical legislation in Massachusetts was well founded. In 
the years following the revolution, when the Toleration 
Act had recognized the Quaker body with other dissenters, 
and further laws passed in their favor were giving them 
various rights and privileges, the growing influence of 
these people received increasing recognition. In govern- 
mental circles this was due in large part to the importance 
of individuals among them who represented ability, wealth 
and large business interests. There has been present in 
the make-up of many adhering to Friends' principles a 
strong business sense and financial keenness which, com- 
bined with deep religious feeling and sincerity of lofty 
purpose, has given great material strength to the society. 
William Penn was himself a possessor of these character- 
istics. In New England the}' appeared conspicuously in 
the lives of Kichard Borden and Thomas Richardson, the 
former a farmer and land surveyor of Tiverton,^- the latter 
a prosperous merchant of Newport.^" These were the two 
men who probably did the greatest work individually for 
the Quaker cause in Massachusetts. Among the English 
Friends who were backing the New England meetings at 
the opening of the eighteentli century many could be men- 
tioned who were primarily men of business. The name of 
William Crouch appears among the signatures to a petition 
(29 Jan., 1702/03) against granting a charter of incorpo- 
ration to Sir Mathew Dudley and others for furnishing 
her Majesty with naval stores. It was offered on the 
theory that such a charter would be destructive to the 
trade of the provinces and be "a very great prejudice" to 
all merchants and traders to those parts, among whom the 

"-Richard Borden showed his business keenness in the purchase, with 
his brother, of twenty-six and one half thirtieths of the mill stream and 
mill lot at Fall River, which brought wealth to his descendants. Peck 
and Earl, Fall River, 227. He was the son of John Borden of Quaker 
Hill, Portsmouth, R. I., with whom George Keith records in his journal 
an amusing encounter. Journal, 23, 30 Aug. 1702. 

33The manuscript letter books of Thomas Richardson, which give an 
idea of the extent of his business, are in the possession of the Newport 
Historical Society. 



96 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [550 

petitioners were numbered. The charter was not granted.^* 
Other important Quakers were John Field, Edward Hast- 
well, Theodor Eccleston and Joseph Wyeth, and in later 
years John Gurney,^'^ Thomas Hyam^" and Richard Part- 
ridge.'^" John Kelsall, a young Quaker who attended the 
London Yearly Meeting of 1704, records in his diary a list 
of the noted Friends present, in which are as many names 
which represent public importance as stand for eminence 
in preaching or writing.'^ ^ 

This was the type of Englishman which had opposed 
William Ill's methods of dealing with foreign trade and 
economic affairs in the colonies, calling into existence the 
body officially known as the Lords Commissioners for 
Trade and Plantations. The first members of the Board 
of Trade were chosen largely to satisfy the demands of 
English business interests.^^ In such interests Quakers 
were represented, and to this fact may be due something 
of the close relation existing between the Board of Trade 
in its early history and the London Yearly Meeting. At a 
later date, when the Board had lost much of its early vigor 
and colonial affairs were in Newcastle's hands, the influ- 
ence of the English Quakers in the problems of the Ameri- 
can Friends was no less conspicuous. In these later years 
the Quaker body not only continued to form a strong 
element in the AVhig part}^, but included among its mem- 

3*C O. 5, 910, 381-382. 

^^He presented the case of the wool weavers before the House of 
Lords in 1720. Biog. Cat., 294; Diet. Nat. Biog. 

^Hn 1718 Hyam signed a petition to the Board of Trade from the 
"Merchants Trading to New England, Virginia and Carolina." asking 
them not to discontinue the bounty granted by Parliament on pitch, tar 
and turpentine imported from the plantations. C. O. 5, 867. 

^'■Jones, Quakers, 205-207 and note. 

^^Kelsall Diaries, 1704, I, 25, 30. Here for example are the names of 
William Penn, Thomas Ellwood, John Field, Theodor Eccleston, Richard 
Claridge, Daniel Philips, Joseph Grove, Joseph Wyeth, Daniel Quare, 
Edward Hastwell, Robert Haydock, James Dickenson, and Benjamin 
Bealing. 

•''^Dicker son. Am. Col. Gov., 20-57. 



551] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 97 

bers several men who could command the attention of 
Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle.^" 

This political influence of the important Quaker lead- 
ers appears in many contests which they entered for the 
sake of the Friends in the colonies, just at the opening of 
the eigliteenth century. Here may be mentioned their 
resistance to the Maryland tobacco act with taxation for 
the Church of England, opposition to the newly published 
Connecticut law against heretics, and their long continued 
struggle against the crown's attack upon proprietary gov- 
ernments. Tho they were in these acts opposed by the 
Church of England, the colony of Connecticut and the 
general policy of the Board of Trade respectively, the 
Quakers were able to get unusual recognition. Two of 
these struggles bear an indirect relation to Massachusetts 
Quakerism. 

In the attack on proprietary governments the Quakers 
of England saw a two-fold danger. In the first place they 
foresaw the fall at the hand of the Board of Trade of the 
thriving Quaker colonies of Pennsylvania and Rhode 
Island, and immediately sent letters to both Philadelphia 
and Newport to advise of the situation and urge that state- 
ments of defense be sent to England.^ ^ Beyond this and as 
a prime motive, they were convinced there was an endeavor 
on the part of the English bishops and clergy, especially 
Dr. Bray, and their "more meaner Instruments," — as they 
termed Randolph and Jeremiah Basse, royal governor in 
New Jersey, — to secure the introduction of governmental 
institutions which could best be used as the civil arm for 
establishing the Church of England in these colonies, wel- 
coming missionaries and collecting tithes.^^ Before them 

*ojohn Gurney was offered a seat in Parliament by Sir Robert Wal- 
pole but declined the offer on the ground that such a position was incom- 
patible with his religious views. Biog. Cat., 294-296. See also J. Belcher 
to R. Partridge, 20 May, 1740, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 507; J. Belcher 
to [T.] Hyam, 25 Oct., 1740, Ibid., VII, 522 ct alia. 

*^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XV, passim; Cal. of St. Papers. Col. 
Series, Am. and the W. I., 1701, 286. 

^-Epistles Sent, I, 408-410, Epistle to R. I., 1701. 



98 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [552 

they imagined lay the same battle in these colonies that 
they were already waging for Maryland. It was in certain 
part due to the efforts of a vigorous committee of the 
London Meeting for Sufferings that the matter was dropped 
in 1701. 

When the attack on the charter governments of Rhode 
Island and Connecticut was renewed in subsequent years, 
the situation was changed b^' the presence of Joseph Dud- 
ley as governor of Massachusetts. While determined to 
enforce the British imperialistic policy of which he was 
the exponent^^ and conscious that this was impossible 
without great changes in the liberties of Rhode Island, he 
had a keen sense of the importance of the Quaker in Eng- 
land. His problem was to keep on good terms with a 
vigorous religious bod}', while advancing schemes for colo- 
nial control which conflicted with the political and less 
directly the religious interests of this sect. During his 
whole period of government he was remarkably successful 
in clearing himself from accusations made by English 
Quakers and in giving a distinct impression of cordiality 
to the New England Friends. 

On May 20, 1703, the London Yearly Meeting took 
notice of the revival in Connecticut of an old law against 
various heretics, including Quakers.^^ The New England 
Yearly Meeting, in sending this law along with an epistle 
to London begging for its ^'repeal,'' were carrying out the 
suggestion which the English Friends had made when, two 
years before, they urged the timely report of such legisla- 
tion. Two distinct measures were adopted by the London 
Meeting for Sufferings at this time. The committee to 
whom the matter was assigned was not only to visit the 
Plantation Office, with a view to learning whether this law 
had yet arrived and been confirmed ; it was also to acquaint 
the Presbyterian and Independent ministers of London of 
the existence of this colonial legislation.*^ The committee, 
upon discovering that this law was at the Plantation 

43Kimball, Joseph Dudley. 

^*Lond. Yr. M., Ill, 77. 

*^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVI, 294-295. 



553] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 99 

Office/*^ wrote a letter to the Presbyterian and to the 
Congregational ministers of London asking them to join 
the Quakers in a petition to the Queen for disallowing 
such laws as were inconsistent with that liberty of con- 
science for which they were all supposed to stand.^'^ The 
answer from the ministers, while acknowledging that they 
as well as the Quakers were for liberty of conscience every- 
where, did not accept the invitation. It stated merely that 
both bodies were writing to the Congregationalists of New 
England, repeating the complaint of the Quakers, and 
remarked that they could go no further until they should 
obtain a reply .^^ 

*^Ibid., XVI, 299-300. 
^■'Ihid., XVI, 305, 311. 

f Presbiterian 
"To the ministers and Elders of the -j j , „„,,j .Congregations. 

There being severall severe Laws made by your Brethren in New 
Engld both in the Massachusets Bay Province and also in the Colony 
of Connecticutt agst. our flfriends the People called Quakers only for their 
Conscientious Dissent from ye Nationall Way there, and not for any 
Crime or Evill fact done by them. 

Now if you are for liberty of Conscience to those that Dissent 
from you and are willing our friends in New England should Enjoye the 
like liberty of their Consciences there, as you with us doe here, — We 
request you to mannifest your sincerety herein, not only by shewing your 
dislike thereof to your Brethren there, but also by your Concurrent 
application (with us) to ye Queen, that she would be favourably pleased 
to disallow all such Laws and in the meantime we hope you will find it 
Expedient to give your publick declaration agst. the said Laws. 

We desire your speedy answer and Remain your Christian fifriends. 

Wm. Crouch 
Wm. Mackett 
Theodr. Eccleston 
Londo. the 22 9/m 1703 Jno. Whiting 

John Field 
George Whitehead" 
Book of Cases, II, 140-141. There is another copy in the Public Record 
Office, C. O. 5, 864. 

*8"To Mr. Wm. Crouch, Mr. Jno. Field, Mr. George Whitehead, Mr. 
John Whiting and Mr. Wm. Mackett. 
Gentlemen 

Your Papers having been Commimicated to us severally we 
have in complyance with your desire wrote two distinct Letters to our 



100 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [554 

The letter which was written at this time by the Lon- 
don Congregational ministers finally reached Increase 
Mather.^*^ In it the writers showed a much less clear 
conception than the English (Quakers possessed of the basis 
and methods of New England legislation, as they had 
studied the Maf/ualia rather than the Plantation Office. 
Nevertheless, with some opening apologies, they made a 
strong case regarding "penal laws for matters of meer 
Conscience."^-* 

In the meantime ^^ the London Quakers grew weary of 
waiting for the Independents, and the Yearly Meeting of 
1704 gave its approval, with financial support, to a petition 
which the Meeting for Sufferings had prepared and was 
ready to la^' before the Queen in Council.^^ Succeeding 
meetings followed this petition in its course through Lords 
Committee and Board of Trade, arranged for answering 

Brethren in New England and therein laid before them the matter of your 
complaint. 

You will easily allow that we must expect their answer before we 
can fairely take any farther steps : only as we have in those Letters fully 
signifyed to them, soe we doe in this Joyntly declare to you, that we are 
most unfeignedly for such a liberty of Conscience every where, as you 
with us doe here by Law enjoy. 
Wee are 

Your servts. in the Lord 

J Spademan Thos : Rowe 

Josh : Oldfield Ben : Rowe 
Ben : Robinson Matth : Clarke 
Ro : Fleming Robt. Bragge" 

January 17th. 1703/4 
Book of Cases, II, 141. 

*9A letter was also written by the Presbyterians (Lond. M. for Suf- 
ferings, XVI, 325, 328) and is probably the one printed in Calamy, Baxter, 
I, 670-672. It is here described as "Sign'd by severall of the other Three 
Denominations of Dissenters and sent in their common Name to some 
Ministers of Reputation in New England, to be communicated to their 
Brethren." It may never have reached its destination. 
50C. O. 5, S64. 

^'^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 257. 
'-^Lond. Yr. M,, III. 125. 



555] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 101 

Sir Henry Ashurst^"^ in his defense of Connecticut and for 
seeking advice from William Penn. They supplied specific 
instances of persecution when called upon and finall}^, 
when the Order in Council had been secured, filed it with 
the other jjapers.^^ 

A second attempt was made by the English Quakers to 
gain the support of the Nonconformists in 1705, after the 
receipt of the Order in Council. A committee of Quakers 
then visited the Independents with the invitation to join 
them in sending to New England the appeal that the "Tol- 
leration act may by yt Governmt be there admitted by 
consent in its full force." As neither body took the steps 
for which the (Quakers were hoping,^^ the Meeting for 
Sufferings independently sent off a copy of the Order in 
Council to the governor of Connecticut with an earnest 
recommendation for the future.^'' 

In this question Dudley became involved through the 
accusation by Sir Henry Ashurst that it was he who had 
unearthed this bit of old legislation and published it in 
Boston in order to stir up in England further hostility to 
the government of Connecticut.^^ While this Avas not a 
fact, the charge was a clever one, as it took account of 
Dudley's appreciation of the importance of the Quakers 
and of the evidence he was already giving of a desire to 
conciliate them. W^atching from Boston their activities in 
England he saw that in their first appeals they were asso- 
ciating Massachusetts with Connecticut in treatment of 

^^In Book of Cases, II, \44-1SA, appear the following papers: — 
Memorial of Sir Henry Ashurst to the Board of Trade, Answer to 
Ashurst by the Quakers, Ashurst's second petition, Answer by the Quakers, 
Instances of prosecution under Connecticut law. Letter from the Quakers 
to the governor of Connecticut. 

^*Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 108, 112, 156 . . . 212, 226, 234, 241, 
274, 276, 291, 299, 303, 309. 

^^Ibid., XVII, 316-317, 320; XVIII, 26. 

^^John Field and Joseph Wyeth to the Governor of Connecticut, Book 
of Cases, II, 152-154. The act had been repealed by Connecticut before 
this letter arrived. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 178. 

'^^Dudley to the Board of Trade, 2 Oct., 1706, C. O. 5, 912, 274-276; 
Trumbull, Hist, of Conn., I, 420. 



102 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [556 

dissenting sects. He accordingly wrote (1 Jan., 1703/04) 
to William Crouch, one of the London Quakers, to explain 
the situation, saying "there are no Laws in . . . [Massa- 
chusetts] yt Affect any perswasion of the Eeformed Re- 
ligion — and . . . their Laws wch were formerly made agst 
friends are abolished."°^ 

William Crouch, tho convinced of Dudley's friend- 
ship, had gained, in the course of his investigations at the 
Plantation Office, information of the letter which Dudley 
had written to the Board of Trade, September 17, 1702, 
berating severely the Quaker government of Rhode Is- 
land.^^ As a result of this discovery his answer to Dudley's 
letter contained a rebuke.*^'' 

Meanwhile the letter written to New England by the 
Congregational ministers of London, carrying with it a 
copy of the London Quakers' letter to them, had reached 
Increase Mather. Not long afterwards (29 October, 1705) 
there appeared in the Boston News Letter, under the 
editorship of John Campbell, certain insinuations against 
the London Quakers based upon their letter to the Congre- 
gational ministers. The chief point here made was that 
the London Quakers in this letter had misrepresented the 
Massachusetts government, accusing it of great unfriendli- 
ness to the Quaker element and in this including Dudley. 
To the London Friends this was a direct challenge from 
Dudley as the paper bore the usual heading, "printed by 
authority." John Field and Joseph Wyeth, who acted as 
a committee in this affair,®^ visited the Lords of Trade and 
secured their promise that a letter would be written to 
clear the London Friends of any suspicion of opposing 
Dudley's government. A letter written soon after by the 

ssLoMrf. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 268. 

^^Cal. of St. Papers, Col. Series, Am. and the W. I., 1702, g66. 

^°Book of Cases, II, 154-157. At the same time the London Meeting 
for Sufferings agreed to send to the Rhode Island Meeting the com- 
plaints which Dudley had made in his letter to the Board of Trade in 
order that the Rhode Island Quakers might prepare to defend themselves 
if occasion arose. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 276, 282. 

^'^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 11. 



557] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 103 

Board of Trade to the governor of Massachusetts con- 
tained this statement: — 

And whereas several of the Quakers here have complained to Us of a 
paper said to be printed at Boston by Authority, Entituled, The Boston 
News Letter, Dated the 29th of October last, containing reflections upon 
their proceedings here in England : We think it fit to give you this notice 
that none of that perswasion have made any Application to this Board in 
reference to New England otherwise than against the forementioned Law 
Entituled Hereticks and that the Spreading of false News cannot but tend 
to the Creating of heats & Animosities amongst her Majesty's subjects.^- 

So it was that Dudley received within a few months 
of each other two letters which called upon him to state 
his position in relation to Quakerism. To each he returned 
a reply. 

To Wm. Crouch in answer to his dated the 3d 6m 1705. 

Boston ye 15th of Aprill 1706. 

Sr This is the first oppertunity Since I had your kind letter and it 
is to thank you for your respect therein and so freely to accept your 
Chiding if I have deserved it, it is certain there is no Law of these Prov- 
inces in force agst any of your perswasion nor pretence thereto but they 
are as Easie in all points as any others to attend their own Method of 
Worship and I believe none of them will complain that I have not always 
Treated them with freedom and respect as well as Justice, but in the 
matter of Road Island of wch you write it is not a Business of Religion 
but of a Civil Nature referring to the Jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court 
in which I did nothing but wt I was Expressly Commanded by her Majesty 
and their Refusal was agst the Law as is given for the Opinion of her 
Maties Councill in the Law to wch they and I ought to submitt, — however 
that matter is now over and need never be Remembred or Repeated, I 
heartily Wish you well and shall be glad of a letter now and then from 
you and pray you will give my service to Mr. Pen when you may see him. 

I am Sr. your very humble servt 

J. Dudley :«3 

To the Board of Trade on October 2, 1706 he wrote : — 

I am very sorry that the News Paper should give your Lordships the 
least disturbance referring to the Quakers here is no Law in being that 
reflects upon them or is grievous, saving the Military Laws, which demand 
Fynes for want of Service, which was made before I came hither, but has 
been used as moderately as I can bring to pass, There are none of that 
perswasion here, but will give Testimony if need were of my friendship 

«2Board of Trade to Dudley, 4 Feb., 1705/06, C. 0. 5, 912, 1 19-120. 
^^Book of Cases, II, 167-168; Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 139. 



104 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [558 

and kind reception of them at all times,^* and in this Matter I have 
reprimanded the writer, and required him to tell his News without any 
reflection for the future, which I am sure he will obey, and of this the 
Quakers here are knowing and well satisfyed.®^ 

This somewhat intricate episode is of importance in 
the light which it throws on numerous civil and ecclesi- 
astical questions. Dudley appears as the exponent of 
British imperialism, ready to carry out the wishes of the 
authority Avhich he represented, with the underlying policy 
of placating rather than disturbing various religious inter- 
ests. The London Quakers give marked evidence of their 
constant support of the smaller gToups in Congregational 
New England and of their ability to enlist the government 
in their belialf ; the Congregational and Presbyterian min- 
isters of London in their few utterances show how little 
sympathy and understanding remained between them and 
the established dissent of New England; they show like- 
wise the weakness of their organization which was often 
met when an attempt was made to bring them to share all 
together in a common cause."*^ 

^*There are several proofs of the truth of this statement. In 1703 a 
petition from Sandwich Quakers reached Dudley, and he seems to have 
taken some interest, perhaps attempting to find out the number of the sect 
in the province. Sandzvich Mo. M., 51 ; A'^. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., II, 149. 

^■'C. O., 5, 912. 274-276. In addition to making this statement to the 
Board of Trade Dudley, in his interview with Campbell, so frightened 
him that the latter sent in all haste to the Board of Trade a letter of 
apology. C. O. 5, 864. 

^^Cotton Mather's utter disgust with the interference of the English 
nonconformists finds vent in his diary on September 11, 1706. "More- 
over, the wicked Quakers having made their Addresses and Complaints 
and Clamours, at home in England against the Countrey, whereof an 
Account was address'd vmto us, by the Independent Ministers in London; 
as if we had persecuting Lawes among us : I thought this a good Oppor- 
tunity, not only to vindicate my injured Countrey, but also to discover 
more and more of the wicked Spirit of Quakerism, and to demonstrate, 
that their Light within is a dark, feeble, sinful Creature, and that to sett 
it up for Christ and God, which is done in Quakerism, is a \ery horrible 
Idolatry. I composed a Treatise on this Occasion ; and sent it over unto 
the Ministers in London; under the Title: NEW AND REMARK- 
ABLE DISCOVERIES OF THE SPIRIT OF QUAKERISM." 7 Mass. 
Hist. Colls., VII, 571. 



559] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 105 

During the progress of these events the Quakers of 
Massachusetts had not been idle. Tho interested primarily 
in the Massachusetts legislation,*^^ the Friends of Lynn 
threw themselves heartily into resistance to the Connecticut 
heretic law, and the New England meetings together sent 
twenty-four pounds to aid in securing its disallowance.®^ 
In 1706 the London Meeting for Sufferings was beginning 
to take up with the Board of Trade the further disabilities 
of the New England Quakers in both Connecticut and 
Massachusetts but was for a time delayed by the Connecti- 
cut agent.*'^ At this moment events occurred in Massa- 
chusetts which roused all the little meetings and carried 
the center of the struggle back to the New England shore. 

The immediate cause of the rising of the little meet- 
ings of Massachusetts was the law of November 14, 1706. 
The weekly meeting which especially stirred itself was that 
of Little Compton whose relations with the Bristol Court 
of General Sessions were somewhat strained. This meet- 
ing, with an appeal to the Governor in mind, on December 
3, 1706, applied to the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting of 
which it was a member; but the latter suggested that it 
would be better to delay matters until "sufferings were 
better put in order," and a concerted action possible.''^ 

Representatives from Rhode Island Monthly now car- 
ried the idea to the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting and 
there urged that all Friends be instructed to collect their 
sufferings "Especially wt is taken for ye Priest." Rhode 
Island Quarterly Meeting approved, and Richard Bordon 
was chosen to 

Send to ye other monthly or Quarterly meeting in Newengland to doe ye 
Like ; & So to bring in order Sd Sufferings to Rhoad Island yearly meeting 

^''Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVII, 257, 309, 321. 

«8This money was collected from Rhode Island, Salem, Lynn, Sand- 
wich, Dartmouth, Scituate, and Boston. Epistles Rec'd, II, 27-30, Epistle 
from Lynn Mo. M., 12 Jan., 1707/08; Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 65-66; 
Dartmouth Mo. M., 27 ; Salem Mo. M., 25 ; R. I. Mo. M., I, 199, 200, 203 ; 
N. E. Yr. M., 35-36. 

^^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XVIII, 179, 184, 230, 245. 

^oi?. I. Mo. M., 1, 82, 184. 



106 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [560 

yt friends may fairly Apeal to ye Masetusus Governer & So for England 
if Acation be for Releaf.'^ 

Salem Quarterly Meeting Avas the next to consider the 
situation. On April 7, 1707, it was ordered that some of 
its principal members send to England the law "lately mad 
for ye maintananc of there Priests" and all others of like 
nature, and appointed Samuel Collins and Walter New- 
bury, two of its prominent members, to "acquaint ye Gov- 
ernar of ye Sd Laws and there intentions before they send 
it for England.'''- 

This committee, obedient to instructions, took up the 
task immediately, but the occurrence of the Yearly Meeting 
two months later made it possible for them, by carrying the 
matter to Rhode Island, to broaden their appeal, so as to 
involve a large part of the Quakers in Massachusetts, tho 
Richard Borden's independent work in the limits of the 
Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting was not included. The 
Yearly Meeting ordered the gathering of "an account of 
friends Sufferings ffor not paying the priest Ever since 
Governor Dudley hath Beene present governor for Reliefe 
and that to Bee done by the ffrst 2d daye of the next month 
and send in the Same to Walter Newberry, in order ffor 
him & Saml Collins to Laye before ye Governor ffor 
Releiefe."^-^ 

The work of Newbury and Collins when finally com- 
pleted comprised a petition and a paper entitled: — "A 
True Accompt of the sufferings of the People Called 
Quakers. In divers parts of this her Majtys Colony of New 
England, for consienciously refusing to pay towards the 
Maintenance of their Priests."^^ It included the various 
recorded instances of distraint and imprisonment for 
priest's rates belonging chiefly to the towns of the Salem 
Quarterly Meeting, Lynn, Salisbury, Haverhill, Amesbury 
and Kittery with a few^ entries for Falmouth and Mendon 
of the Sandwich Quarterly. The sufferings of the Lynn 

^^R. I. Quart. M., 47. 
''"Salem Quart. M., I, 5. 
"AT. E. Yr. M., 36. 
''^Mass. Archives, XI, 237. 



561] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 107 

Quakers in 1705 and 1706 were estimated at seventy-one 
pounds six shillings and five pence. The accompanying 
petition reminded the governor and council of their power 
to block this oppressive legislation and warned them that, 
unless something Avere done at Boston for the relief of 
Quakers, application would surely be made to England/^ 

While Dudley had no grudge against the Quakers, the 
Council was not very friendly. The cause had not yet 
become a vital issue. A delay was voted and objections 
raised. No promises were made.^*^ 

Immediately after this, difficulties in Bristol County 
became so acute that the Salem committee became unim- 
portant and interest settled on the Rhode Island Quarterly 
Meeting for which Richard Borden was at work. The exe- 
cution of the law of 1706 did, as we have seen, particularly 
affect the Quakers in the towns of Dartmouth and Tiver- 
ton ; but it was not until September, 1708, that their affairs 
were taken up systematically by the society. At that time, 
In the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting, the "business con- 
cerning the Rate which is required of this town by the Gen- 
eral Court or Assembly at Boston, part of which rate is 
supposed to be for the maintenance of a hireling priest," 
was referred to the Quarterly Meeting at Rhode Island 
and John Tucker, the leading Quaker of Dartmouth, was 
sent to Boston with a petition from the Dartmouth Friends 
to be laid before the governor.'''^ In the following meeting 
Tucker reported that he had been at Boston but had not 
been able to get a satisfactory answ^r.^^ 

In the meantime the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting 
had begun consideration of the similar situation at Tiver- 
ton, that town lying within its boundaries. The law of 
1706 was denounced and a committee appointed to inform 
the governor in writing of the "detriment to Friends" 
caused by the law. It was to request relief and, should its 

'^sThis petition appears in full in Mass. Archives, XI, 235. 
'^^Epistles Rec'd, II, 27-30, Epistle from Lynn Mo. M., 1707/08 ; Lond. 
M. for Sufferings, XIX, 66. 
'^''Dartmouth Mo. M., 43. 
■'^Ihid., 45- 



108 CHrRCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [562 

petition be disregarded, threaten an address to the Queen/^ 
At the following meeting Richard Borden reported that he 
and Joseph Wanton, another prominent Tiverton Quaker, 
had delivered the paper as ordered and had received from 
Dudley a verbal answer to the effect that they should have 
a hearing before the General Court. In this message there 
was nothing sufficiently encouraging to deter the meeting 
from ordering more lines, this time to be presented to the 
Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, that with its sanction 
they might be sent to the governor as a second appeal.^^ 

The two monthly meetings of Dartmouth and Rhode 
Island had made their independent appeals to Governor 
Dudley. Both had likewise referred the matter to the 
Rhode Island Quarterly in which they were represented. 
This meeting accepted its task and went promptly to work 
appointing Ebenezer Slocum 

for to Speake with ye Govener of ye masathuset Bay, in behalf of ffrinds 
Concerning the Great oppresion ytt Is Likely to fall upon ffrinds In ytt 
Colloney by ye Priests Raits being Joyned In with ye gineral Publick 
Tax.81 

This petition did little more than repeat what the Rhode 
Island Monthly Meeting had already written.^- 

Ebenezer Slocum found Dudley willing to give him a 
personal interview and distinctly friendly, as he had 
proved in his conversation with Borden and Wanton. 
While the governor was not able to effect any improve- 
ment in the situation, the lower house standing firm to the 
law of 1706, he took matters into his own hands to the 
extent of including in a letter to the Board of Trade a 
review of events in Dartmouth and Tiverton with an ex- 
pression of personal opinion. 

I thought it my Duty to Acquaint Your Lordships herewith, Expecting 
a Complaint thereupon, I am sorry for their Suffering though it be not 
upon the head of Religion, and am also sorry that they would be Assessors 
of the Tax to bring themselves into trouble, they think it hard to be Taxed 

^97?. /. Mo. M., II, 15. 

80/bid., II, 16. 

8ii?. I. Quart. M., 53. 

*-This petition appears in full in R. I. Quart. M., 54. 



563] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 109 

to the Maintenance of the Ministry, and if those 31 are Strictly of their 
profession were quitted it would be no great loss but it is Expected that 
if such an Indulgence be given, a great many will profess themselves 
Quakers, to quit themselves of this charge, as they have done from bearing 
Arms, and Many Villages in the Country would be left without any 
Publick Worship on the Lords Day. I humbly offer it to Your Lordships 
Consideration having no Interest in the Matter, but that Religion may be 
Maintained. ^3 

The petition of 1708, tho failing to secure any relief 
to the Quakers, had gained something in this letter of 
Dudley's. Two other results accompanied it. The Quakers, 
convinced that nothing could be done through the local 
government, decided to carry out their alternative and 
make a vigorous application home to England to prevent 
the allowance of the law of 1706,^^ while the General Court, 
foreseeing this action, proceeded to draw up a memorial 
to be laid before the Queen justifying this legislation.^^ 
This lengthy document, which is a handbook of Massachu- 
setts ecclesiastical orthodoxy, had practically no effect.^® 

The petition from the Quakers to the Queen, which 
was the third result of their solicitations at Boston in 
1708, was temporarily delayed. The petition to the gov- 
ernor from the Khode Island Quarterly Meeting had failed, 
and the following month saw the seizure by the sheriff of 
Bristol County and imprisonment at Bristol gaol of the 
neglectful assessors, Richard Borden of Tiverton and 

831>udley to the Board of Trade, i Mar., 1708/09, C. O. 5, 913, 113-114. 

^*R. I. Quart. M., 55. 

^^Mass. Archives, XI, 279-280. The paper is entitled "A Memorial of 
the Governour Council & Assembly of Her Majties Province of the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England for their Vindication against the 
Suggestions and Insinuations of any who may accuse them of harshness 
and Severitys towards such as are of different perswasions from them in 
matters of Religion." An undated copy of this document is filed among 
the Board of Trade Papers for the years 1718-1720. C. O. 5, 869, No. 9. 

s^From a letter written by Dummer to Sewall (7 Dec, 1709) it would 
appear that it did little more than intensify the irritation which the Board 
of Trade felt toward Massachusetts. Loud. M. for Sufferings, XX, 11. 
The answer written by the Board of Trade to Dudley's letter of March 
I, 1708/09, and sent to him Jan. 16, 1709/10, ignores the whole discussion. 



110 CHURCH AND STATP] IN MASSACHUSETTS [564 

Thomas Taber and Deliverance Smith of Dartmouth.^" At 
this the Khode Island Monthly Meeting of November 30, 
1708, decided to give the governor one more chance ; but in 
case he failed to answer their requests, the Quakers de- 
clared, "then this meeting Doth Continue ... to write to 
the Queen. "^^ At the following meeting the petition to 
the Queen was read, and ordered sent to England.^'' 

This petition, which reached London in the spring of 
the following year, was given careful consideration by the 
Meeting for Sufferings. It was agreed, however, that in- 
stead of addressing the Queen it would be well to write 
once more to the Presbyterian and Congregational minis- 
ters of London.^" A meeting between the delegation from 
the London Meeting for Sufferings, headed by John Field, 
and the Congregational ministers occurred in the latter 
part of November, 1709, and gave the Quakers good cause 
for encouragement. From the discussion which took place 
they were once more convinced that the English noncon- 
formists had very little feeling of sympathy for their 
brethren in New England and "seemed Inclined to be 
Assisting to friends in Endeavouring to get yt Law Re- 
pealed wch friends complain of."^^ At a meeting in the 
following month the Quakers received the offer from the 
Congregationalists to wTite once more to New England 
urging that the annoyances of which the Quakers com- 
plained, might cease.^^ 

®^During the whole time of imprisonment of these men the Monthly 
Meetings of Rhode Island regularly arranged for the support of their 
families. Thomas Taber was a Baptist rather than a Quaker but was 
included in this benevolence. R. I. Mo. M., II, 2i ; Dartmouth Mo. M., 
46-47, 49- 

88/?. /. Mo. M., II, 19. 

^^Ibid., 20. 

^'^Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58; Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 296, 301, 307, 
310. 

^'^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 324. 

^-"Joseph Grove Reports his and some other friends being with the 
Independt Preachers according to appointment and were Civilly Treated 
by them — and they seem to shew their great dislike to their Brethren in 
New Englands proceedings agst our friends there — and offered their 



565] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 111 

Whether or not the dissenting ministers carried out 
their promise as they had on a previous occasion, an even 
more effective measure was taken by Jeremiah Dummer, 
at this time agent for Massachusetts. In consequence of 
the lengthy memorial from the General Court to the Board 
of Trade and the action in the London Quaker meetings 
which might end in a petition to the Queen, he wrote to 
Samuel Sewall, at this time a member of the governor's 
council in Massachusetts and Judge of the Superior Court 
at Boston. In this letter he reminded Sewall of the ill 
name which Massachusetts magistrates had with the gov- 
ernment for their many independent actions, and suggested 
that the Queen would have little sympathy with dissenters 
for giving severe treatment to Quakers and Baptists who 
were looked upon in England as equal with the Presbyte- 
rians and Independents under the Toleration Act.^^ 

The chief reason why the Quakers did not apply to 
the Privy Council in 1709 was that the very meeting which 
received the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting's petition 
learned also of the liberation of the imprisoned assessors. 
After dispatching to London their petition to the Queen, 
the monthly meetings of New England proceeded to take 
what measures they could for the immediate relief of the 
imprisoned assessors. The Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of 
January 17, 1708/09, sent John Tucker to Boston to ask for 
the release of the prisoners*'^ and the results of his efforts 
were most satisfactory. Between the years 1706 and 1714 
Tiverton was regularly, with the exception of the present 
year, assessed the sum of one hundred seventy pounds 
while Dartmouth was rated for an amount varying be- 
tween three hundred forty-five pounds and three hundred 
seventy. The charges for 1708-1709 of two hundred pounds 
and four hundred thirty-seven pounds and eleven shillings 

Assistance in writing over to them, to stop the prosecution agst our 
friends and one of their ministers that intends sudenly to goe over 
declar'd he would be assisting therein." Loud. M. for Sufferings, XIX, 331. 

^^Dummer to Sewall, 7 Dec, 1709, Loud. M. for Sufferings, XX, 11. 

^*Dartmouth Mo. M., 47. 



112 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [566 

respectively showed therefore a ministerial rate of thirty 
pounds for Tiverton and about sixty for Dartmouth. The 
selectmen not only failed to assess the one hundred pounds 
extra but declined to have anything to do with the whole 
rate. Their imprisonment was therefore legal even without 
the ecclesiastical legislation of 1706. Through a compro- 
mise now effected the assessors of Tiverton agreed to assess 
the town's regular rates and the additional tax was re- 
moved "for the present."^^ In the case of Dartmouth the 
two assessors were unexpectedly discharged.^^ 

The probable explanation of these events appears in a 
vote of the New England Yearly Meeting which soon oc- 
curred. Richard Borden and Thomas Cornell were ap- 
pointed to write to Governor Dudley "a sallutation of 
Respects and acknowledgments of his severall ffavors and 
Kindnesses shewed unto our ffriends."^" The Governor 
of Massachusetts had expressed in his attitude toward the 
Quakers in his province, the general policy of the Board 
of Trade as well as what was probably his own personal 
sympathy. It is significant that the next serious troubles 
between the Massachusetts authorities and the Quakers 
of Dartmouth and Tiverton did not occur until after the 
death of Queen Anne and the removal of Dudley. 

In 1715, the year of Lieutenant-Governor William 
Tailer's authority, the Quakers became much concerned 
upon learning that the Massachusetts Church was taking 
means to secure governmental sanction for holding a synod, 
as had been done in the early days of the colony. In this 
attempt the New England Yearly fleeting saw on the part 
of the ministers a determination to have the Congrega- 
tional Church receive more legal recognition. To them it 
seemed that an act of the legislature, giving the right to 
hold such a synod, upon receiving royal allowance, would 

^^Mass. Prov. Laivs, IX, 47, ch. 124. 

^^Dartmouth Mo. M., 47-48, 49; Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58. 

^W. E. Yr. M., 52. Further Quaker approval of Dudley may be found 
in Epistles Rec'd, II, 29-30, Epistle from the Lynn Mo. M., 1707/08; 
ibid., II, 63-64, Epistle from the N. E. Yr. M., 1708; Lond. Yr. M., IV, 58. 
A different view is taken by Palfrey, New England, IV, 449, note. 



567] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 113 

make the Congregational Cliurcb the true established 
church of Massachusetts, like "Presbitery ... in North 
Britain,"^^ as thev argued it had never really been. A 
memorial from the Congregational ministers was before 
the upper house on May 31 when it was voted by the coun- 
cilors "That the Synod and Assembly above-mentioned, is 
agreeable to them, and the Reverend Ministers, are Desired 
to take their own time for the said Assembly." On June 1 
it was concurred in by the Representatives.*^^ The Yearly 
Meeting which now opened its sessions appointed a com- 
mittee to watch the progress of the ministers' memorial 
and if necessary, inform the London correspondents, that 
they might prevent the allowance of any such law.^°^ The 
London Meeting for Sufferings, upon receiving this infor- 
mation, was on the alert^*^^ but action was unnecessary, as 
Increase Mather opposed the synod in an address to the 
House of Representatives and it was never authorized.^^- 

The law of November 14, 1706, was enacted for seven 
years only. If the English crown had seen fit to order it 
disallowed when addressed in 1708, or if the Massachusetts 
General Court had been willing to let it lapse when its time 
was run out, the stirring events among the Quakers which 
began once more in 1717 and culminated in an appeal to 
the Privy Council in 1723 would never have occurred. The 
legislation of 1706 was practically repeated in 1715, and the 
law of 1715 was reenacted in 1722. While the legislation 

^^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXII, 125. 

^^House Journal, 171S, 8. 

100 A/. E. Yr. M., 90; Epistles Rec'd, II, 186, Epistle from N. E. Yr. M., 

i/iS- 

^^^Lond. Yr. M., V, 155-156; Loud. M. for Sufferings, XXII, 125, 127. 
"Our friends of New England had but too much Reason for giving us a 
hint of their design Because ye Ministers and Elders of Boston had con- 
certed Such a Project among themselves and That Cotton Mather & 
Ebenezer Pemberton, Two of their Preachers had agreed to undertake 
the voyage as agents ; But when they came afterwards to lay their 
Intentions before the Assembly, such Reasons were there offered against 
it, yt it was Quasht, at least for the present." Lond. M. for Sufferings, 
XXII, 230; Epistles Sent, II, 238; Lond. Yr. M., V, 220. 

^°-House Journal, 1715, 17, 18. 



114 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [568 

of 1715 continued the chief provisions of the law of 1706, 
it was not followed, as in 1708, by a strict application. For 
this reason it aroused little immediate excitement among 
the Quakers. The first evidence we have that they had 
discovered the act of 1715 is in the action of the Dart- 
mouth Monthly Meeting of May 20, 1717, when a committee 
was chosen 

to Draw up some account to Walter Newbury Concerning a Late act for 
ye maintenance of ministers and Desire him to take ye said act along with 
him to Old England and deliver it to John Whiting or some other friend 
yt he shall think suitable. ^"^ 

It was at this same time that the affairs of Dartmouth 
Quakers were again before the General Court. Peleg 
Slocum and John Tucker owned land on the Elizabeth 
Islands and were accordingly rated to the minister of 
Chilmark, in the boundaries of which town it was located, 
altho both men resided on the mainland and hence far 
from Martha's Vineyard. 

Not only did the two men petition the General Court 
but the Yearly- Meeting^*^^ also addressed a representation 
to the governor who was now His Excellency Samuel 
Shute. The Council, perhaps realizing from the affair of 
1709 what the course of events might be, voted a hearing 
for the following session, all prosecution to cease in the 
meantime. But the House of Representatives, when finally 
forced to consider the case, proceeded to vote a dismissal 
of the whole affair. Even when the minister and town of 
Chilmark went so far as to ask that the estates of Slocum 
and Tucker might be exempted from paying toward Chil- 
mark's ecclesiastical charges and the Council was ready to 
grant this request, the lower house met the situation with 
a twice repeated "non concurred. "^^^ 

The result of the events of 1717 was that the Quakers 
of New England in the following year once more took up 

^^"Dartmouth Mo. M., 115. 

lo^A^. E. Yr. M., 98, 99; Epistles Rec'd, II, 211, Epistle from N. E. 
Yr. M., 1717. 

-i^o^Honse Journal, 1717, 21, 24, 25, 27. 



569] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 115 

their problem of relationship to the established system of 
the province. Their work so far had shown no lack of 
energy. Beginning with the systematic recording of suf- 
ferings and an endeavor to discover the constitutional 
basis of the laws of which they complained they were soon 
pouring applications for redress before the governor of the 
province and the London Yearly Meeting. Several formal 
petitions to the Queen in Council had crossed the water; 
but the English Quakers for one reason or another had 
failed to push these, tho always ready to do what they 
could for the New England meetings. As a matter of fact, 
whatever the New England Quakers did before 1718, tho 
sincere and strenuous, was accomplished largely through 
individuals or the smaller meetings, and lacked system. 
The work done in and after 1718, altho it was started by 
the separate appeal to Boston by Slocuni and Tucker, was 
based on a new theory. All efforts were to center in the 
Yearly Meeting and by it a common treasury for this spe- 
cial end was organized, to back up a petition to the crown 
in England. 

This policy is recorded in the minutes of the New 
England Meeting. 

The Consideration of the Contineued Sufferings of ffriends Under the 
Prisbeterian, or Independiant Priest; haveing taken hold of this meeting; 
it is agreed that ffriens doe as soone as with Conveniency they Can wright 
to our ffriends in great Brittain Requesting Their Endevours ffor ouer 
Relief in that Case and In order to Carey on Said business ; and to Deffray 
the Charge thearof it is agreed that the Quarterly meeting of Rhoad 
Island doe Colect the Some of thirtey pounds ; & ye Quarterly meeting 
of Salem the Some of ffifteen pounds & ye Quarterly meeting of Sand- 
wich & Sittuat the Some of ffifteen pounds ; and when Colected to be 
ordered into the hands ; of John Wanton & Thomas Richardson ; they to 
remit Ye Same home in ye best method thay Can and this meeting will 
Supply with more money ffor that Sarvice if wanted ; and Said John 
Wanton & Thomas Richardson are desired to Take Ye management of 
that Affair Uder their Ceare— lo^ 

Not waiting for this committee to act, the writers of 
the epistle to London included in their letter a statement 
of the case and the request that the London Meeting should 

low. E. Yr. M., 102. 



116 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [570 

immediately take up the same with the government.^ *^^ The 
official communication from the New England Yearly 
Meeting to the London Friends, by the hand of Thomas 
Kichardson, was dispatched two months later. In it special 
emphasis w^as laid upon the sixty pounds which the meet- 
ing was then raising to help defray the expenses of an 
application to the crown.^'^^ 

According to the order of the Yearly Meeting and the 
promise of Kichardson to the London Friends, the three 
quarterly meetings of New England went systematically 
to work to raise the sum of sixty pounds agreed upon as 
a necessary beginning. In its meeting of July 11, 1718, 
the Rhode Island Quarterly apportioned its thirty pounds 
among its five monthly meetings, asking Rhode Island to 
contribute ten pounds, Dartmouth the same, Greenwich 
three, Providence two and Nantucket five.^*^*^ Dartmouth 
and Rhode Island, the two meetings which had felt most 
keenly the weight of the Massachusetts law, each volun- 
tarily contributed an extra forty shillings.^^" While there 
was somewhat less enthusiasm outside of the bounds of 
the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, by the beginning of 
1719 the sum of sixty pounds two shillings and six pence 
had been collected and was dispatched by Richardson to 
England.^ ^^ Tho the English Friends had so far failed to 
answer the earlier letter dated in August, that Richardson, 
when he consigned the money in January, 1719, begged 
for some word,^^- later events proved that the Londoners 
were not idle. In fact the answer of the London Yearly 
Meeting was already on its way to Massachusetts. ^^^ 

The London Meeting for Sufferings of November 28, 
1718, had considered the Yearly Epistle from New Eng- 

i<>"iV. E. Yr. M., loi, 103; Epistles Rec'd, II, 239, Epistle from N. E. 
Yr. M., 1718; Loud. Yr. M., V, 363. 

^^^Letter Book of Thomas Richardson, II, 158-159. 

io9i?. /. Quart. M., 96. 

'^'^°Ibid., 99, 100. 

iiW. E. Yr. M., 104. 

^'^-Letter Book of Thomas Richardson, II, 181-182. 

^^^Epistles Sent. II. 285. Epistle to N. E. Yr. M., 1718. 



571] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 117 

land with its account of sufferings and promise to send 
money for an application to the government, and appointed 
a committee to consider the situation. ^^^ The report which 
was brought in one month later so far assured the meeting 
of the injustice of the Massachusetts law that an immedi- 
ate agreement was reached to appeal to the government. ^^^ 
Through the rest of 1718 and the following year this 
committee was retained on the New England affair, and 
by May, 1719, had progressed so far as to have read in the 
Privy Council a petition which it had drawn. ^^*^ As in the 
previous petitions to the Governor and Council of Massa- 
chusetts the Quakers here set forth 

the great hardships they suffer by not paying the Demands of the Priests 
there [and humbly prayed] in regard the Charter granted to that Colony 
by King William, Allows a free Exercise and Liberty of Conscience to 
all subjects that should settle there (except Papists) That His Majesty 
will Commisserate their Case, and Direct the Governor of said Province 
to Relieve Them herein. 

This petition was referred to the Board of Trade May 26, 
1719.1" 

At this point it was suddenly dropped as the result of 
information given the London Friends by one of the Mas- 
sachusetts agents. From him the English Friends heard 
that the local government was contemplating some sort of 
legislation for the relief of Quakers,^^^ and decided that 
before going farther they would investigate this rumor. A 
letter was written to New England asking that the matter 
be looked into; and the Khode Island Quarterly Meeting 
responded by sending John Wanton and Thomas Richard- 
son to consult with Thomas Fitch and Jonathan Belcher 
of the Governor's Council. ^^^ It was probably at their 
suggestion that the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting imme- 

ii*LomJ. M. for Sufferings, XXII, 341-342. 
^^^Ibid., XXII, 342, 356; Epistles Sent, II, 285. 
^'^^Epistles Sent, II, 295, Epistle to N. E. Yr. M., 17 19. 
^''■'^Acts of the Privy Council, II, 761. 
ii^Ma^yj. Prov. Laws, II, 270. 

''■^^R. I. Quart. M., 104. It is difficult to discover how much Belcher 
did for the Quakers at this time. 



118 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [572 

diately voted to send a delegation to the General Court at 
its opening once more to state the case.^^*^ This order was 
approved by tlie Yearly Meeting^-^ and an elaborate peti- 
tion drawn up which was before the Council on July 21, 
1720.^22 

The Council went so far at this time as to appoint a 
committee "to Consider what may with Justice & due Re- 
gard to the Laws of this Province be done for their Ease, 
And more especially to prevent their being oppressed upon 
any Distress made upon their Estates," while further dis- 
cussion was postponed until the following session.^ ^^ In 
all the House concurred. 

While the Council was now ready to be conciliatory, 
the Assembly was still opposed to any great concessions 
and the following months were disappointing to the New 
England Meeting, Wanton and Borden were retained as 
a committee but repeatedly reported lack of success in 
Boston. ^^^ The following year (1721) saw the second ap- 
pointment in the Council of a committee,^^^ which went 
even farther than its predecessor in suggesting a method 
for relief of Quakers. Constables or collectors were to be 
"obliged to take as near as may be the Value of the Sum 
or Sums assess'd," and in case of seizure of stock and a 
disagreement concerning the value, after an interval of 
four days, during which time the charge of keeping was 
to devolve upon the owner, the assessors of the town were 
to appraise the same, the constable to accept this decision 
and return the overplus "after the necessary Charges of 
Taking & Keeping the same are deducted." Poor compro- 
mise tho it was, it savored far too highly of a leniency to- 

120/?. /. Quart. M., 105. 

12W. E. Yr. M., 108; Epistles Rec'd, II, 291, Epistle from N. E. Yr. 
M., 1720. 

^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 270. 

^^Hhid., II, 270; Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXIII, 78-79. 

i24i?. 7. Quart. M., 114, 115; Epistles Rec'd, II, 312-313, Epistle from 
N. E. Yr. M., 1721. 

^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 270. 



573] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 119 

ward irreligion to find favor in the lower house. The 
Representatives failed to concur.^-** 

At this Dartmouth called a town meeting, voted to 
assess only that part of the province rate which excluded 
the one hundred pounds additional, sent an agent to state 
the case before the General Court and agreed that any 
troubles to which the selectmen might be put by reason of 
the town's vote regarding the tax should be met by a town 
rate.^^"^ When Dartmouth's petition secured the attention 
of the General Court on December 26, it was again re- 
ceived favorably by the Council which recommended a 
discharge of the whole matter if Dartmouth would pay the 
amount assessd upon her in the previous year; but the 
lower house, unwilling to concur, allowed the case to run 
over to the following session.^^^ 

As a result of Dartmouth's town vote her province 
rate remained partl}^ uncollected, and in May her assess- 
ors, John Akin and Philip Taber, were arrested by the 
sheriff and carried to Bristol. There they met Joseph 
Anthony and John Sisson of Tiverton who, as assessors of 
that town, had had an experience much like that of the 
Dartmouth men. 

The divergent opinion between the Council and House 
of Representatives which had already manifested itself 
appeared even more strongly exhibited in the summer of 
1723, in a dispute between the two houses, respecting the 
tax bill for this year. The Council, in considering the 
petitions from Dartmouth and Tiverton, paid careful atten- 
tion to technicalities in the laws of 1692 and 1715. The 
result was an important decision in the case of each town. 
The laws, so said the Council, directed how ministers 
should be chosen ; viz. either by the church with sanction 
of the town, or in case they be negligent, then by the gen- 
eral sessions of the peace which should i^rovide and settle 

i-'^il/aj^. Prov. Lazvs, II, 270. 

i-^Potter, First Cong. Soc. of New Bedford, ■26; Mass. Prov. Laws, 
II, 271. 

^-^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 271. 



120 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [574 

an orthodox minister. Only after they had done this and 
found their orders eluded, might they represent the matter 
to the General Court which should then settle and provide 
for a minister by assessing a rate additional in the prov- 
ince tax. In applying these laws the Council concluded 
that it did ''not appear That the Sessions of the Peace for 
the County of Bristol ever appointed and sent a Minister 
to Tiverton," and until that step should be taken it did 
not seem to the Council law^ful that the General Assembly 
should appoint a minister as they had attempted to do. 
In the case of Dartmouth it was discovered that while the 
town had an orthodox minister he had never made any con- 
tract with the town for his maintenance and the General 
Sessions of the Peace had never made any order on the 
town for his support, "Nor could they by Law, until the 
sd Minister had made a Complaint," which he had never 
done. In view of this decision the Council could not think 
it right that Dartmouth or Tiverton should be assessed in 
the coming tax bill beyond what was their proportionate 
rate with the other towns.^^*^ 

In spite of this decision victory went to the lower 
house. Just two days later the Representatives were busy- 
ing themselves over the ministry in Dartmouth and Tiver- 
ton. The sum of one hundred pounds was voted to Samuel 
Hunt of Dartmouth from the province treasury, which 
sum was to be added to Dartmouth's proportion in the 
province tax for 1723.^^^ Tiverton, still neglectful and re- 
fusing to settle an orthodox minister, was to be provided 
with one by order of the General Court, and his salary of 
seventy-two pounds and eleven shillings was to be paid 
and raised in similar manner.^^^ With both resolves the 
Council now concurred, for one of its technical objections 
to previous measures had been obviated. The House of 
Representatives in its order placed the execution of the 
law in both instances upon the justices of the county of 

^-^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 271. 
^^^Ihid., II, 272; X, 316, ch. 77. 
^^^Ibid., II, 272; X, 317, ch. 78. 



575] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 121 

Bristol ; and on the following day passed the tax act of 
1723 with its large rates additional on Dartmouth and 
Tiverton/^" 

In the meantime the court of general sessions had 
been busy enforcing previous legislation. When this law 
was passed the Dartmouth and Tiverton assessors had 
already been in Bristol gaol a month for their failure to 
assess the province rate for 1722. In fact on the very day 
that the General Court passed the tax bill for 1723, it was 
called on to consider two petitions, one from Dartmouth 
and one from Tiverton, asking that these assessors might 
be released upon payment of the proportionate rates of 
those two towns. In both cases the Council voted a hearing 
on the whole case for the fall session, with the immediate 
release of the prisoners upon promise to return. Once 
more the House asserted itself as upon previous occasions 
and refused to concur.^^^ This action upon the part of the 
lower house proved to be the decisive stroke with the Quak- 
ers. For a quarter of a century they had been pouring 
their woes into the ears of Governor, Council, and House 
of Representatives. On numerous occasions the governors 
had shown kindness and made promises; in the last few 
years the Council had given signal evidence of a desire to 
concede; but no impression had been made on the repre- 
sentatives of the towns of the province who, in this matter 
which involved a religious question, showed their provin- 
cialism even more strongly than in the consideration of 
other matters which were of greater concern to the royal 
governors. 

The time for an appeal to England was now ripe. We 
have traced the close relation between the London and the 
New England Friends during this period and have seen 
how much Richard Partridge and his associates had al- 
ready done, especially in the year 1719, and how the matter 
had been dropped in anticipation of what the local govern- 
ment might be willing to do. When the Friends of New 

^^-Mass. Prov. Laivs, II, 293, ch. 8. 
"37&iU, II, 272. 



122 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [576 

England resolved once more to make application to the 
crown it was with the determination to send an agent to 
England, well armed with authority and funds, who should 
push the matter until some definite result should really be 
accomplished. 

The agent chosen by the New England Yearly Meeting 
to present the case of the Dartmouth and Tiverton assess- 
ors in London was Thomas Richardson of Newport who 
in the spring of 1723 was making preparations for a voyage 
to England. ^^^ Richardson was to explain the whole situa- 
tion to the London Quakers and urge them to renew their 
earlier efforts, with the understanding that the New Eng- 
land Yearly Meeting would continue to back them 
financially in anything which they would undertake. ^^^ 

Richard Partridge of London was no sooner apprised 
of the further application which the New England Friends 
were making than he began to take necessary measures. 
There was certainly no man in England better able, in 
training and in interests, to carry the wishes of the Massa- 
chusetts Quakers before the Privy Council and the Board 
of Trade, than Richard Partridge. Born and educated in 
New England, he was well acquainted with the ecclesias- 
tical system of Massachusetts; an important member of 
the Society of Friends in London, he had the interests of 
its people at heart. Of the greatest value was his position 
as a colonial agent, who had for years been dealing with the 
various branches of the government, especially those which 
handled colonial affairs. The appreciation which Part- 
ridge had of the value and best use of money in bribes and 
fees, his employment of the right persons and his constant 
presence on every occasion to see that his case was not 
allowed to drop : — these were the means by which the Order 
in Council of June 2, 1724, was gained. 

During the entire time when Partidge was at work on 
the New England affair, he had the constant support of 
the London Meeting for Sufferings which advanced money 

13*/?. /. Mo. M., II, 211, 212. 

I'^AT. E. Yr. M., 119. 



577] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 123 

and voted him an able committee to assist with the work.^^^ 
As soon as Thomas Kichardson, the New England Quakers' 
agent, reached England, he was associated with Partridge ; 
but in all matters the latter was leader. 

Before Richardson's arrival Partridge had interviewed 
Chief Justice Weargs for advice as to the best way to pro- 
ceed^^' and had secured John Shari^e as attorney to prose- 
cute the case. It was Sharpe who drew up the petition 
and on October 21 succeeded in having it put in the paper 
of business which the Privy Council was to take up on the 
following day. 

Accordingly it was on October 22 that the petition 
which Richard Partridge and Thomas Richardson pre- 
sented, in behalf of the four imprisoned assessors of Dart- 
mouth and Tiverton and also the Quakers in general, was 
first taken up by the Privy Council and was on that day 
referred to committee.^ ^^ The details connected with the 
actions of Partridge and his associates in succeeding 
months are of value in the light which they throw upon 
the ways and methods by which the disallowance of colo- 
nial legislation was secured. As the case was passed from 
Privy Council to committee, from committee to the Board 
of Trade, and from the Board of Trade to the Board's 
attorney, Richard West, and back again, it was followed 
ceaselessly by Richard Partridge and Thomas Richardson, 
the auxiliary committee of the London Meeting for Suf- 
ferings, and John Sharpe, the Quakers' lawyer.^^*^ Richard 
West in drawing up his opinion summoned Sanderson and 

i36LoMcf. M. for Sufferings, XXIII, 346, 347, 349- 

^^''Moses Brown Papers, "Papers regarding imprisonment of Quakers." 

^^^Acts of the Privy Council, III, 58. This famous petition may be 
found in contemporary manuscript form in the Mass. Archives, Board of 
Trade Papers, Moses Brown Papers, Book of Cases. It has been printed 
in Backus, Baptists, Gough, Quakers, Hallowell, Pioneer Quakers, and 
elsewhere. 

i39The important documents belonging to this case are printed in 
Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 273, 277 ; additional documents of interest are among 
the Moses Brown Papers, entitled "Papers regarding imprisonment of 
Quakers." See also Acts of the Privy Council, III, 58, 59- 



124 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [578 

Dummer to present the side of the Massachusetts General 
Court, and Sanderson and Sandford with Bampfleld as 
their attorney appeared on the day of the hearing before 
the Board of Trade. The journals kept by John Sharpe 
and Kichard Partridge in connection with their accounts 
of expenditure show just when their presence was most 
needful to keep their case in the business of the meetings, 
and at what points it was necessary to pay the largest 
fees. Before submitting his opinion on the tax act Richard 
West received four pounds and five shillings. On the eve 
of the final hearing before the Lords Committee, when only 
counsel could argue. Partridge paid ten pounds and fifteen 
shillings each to the attorney and solicitor-general and 
thirteen pounds two shillings and six pence to Talbot. 
These methods brought the success on which Partridge was 
determined. The first report rendered, that of Richard 
West, on the tax act of 1722 in point of law, was not alto- 
gether encouraging. In this act West saw nothing uncon- 
stitutional, as nothing upon the face of tlie act indicated 
that the additional sums levied upon Dartmouth and Tiv- 
erton were for the support of the ministry. The report 
of the Board of Trade, tho based upon this, was more 
satisfactory. The tax act of 1723 had been unofficially 
reported to the Board and the latter was quite ready to 
take exception to it. 

We think it our duty, [wrote the Lords of Trade] to represent to Your 
Excelcys that by the Charter granted to the Massachusets Bay, the foun- 
dation of this Colony was laid in an absolute & free liberty of conscience 
for all Christian Inhabitants there, except Papists, But the Presbyterians 
having absolutely the ascendant in the Assembly of this Province, have 
assum'd to themselves the authority of an established Church, and would 
compel the Quakers even in the Towns of Dartmouth and Tiverton, where 
they are infinitely the majority, to pay a large maintenance to Presbyterian 
Ministers, whom they call Orthodox, for the service of some few Presby- 
terian Families only. 

When the act of 1723 made its official appearance, the 
Board stood by this statement of opinion and recommended 
its disallowance. Altho the Lords of Trade were repeating 
West's legal opinion in replying to the order of the com- 



579] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 125 

mittee of the Council, this statement was obviously favor- 
able to Quakers. The Lords Committee went one step 
farther. On the ground that the additional sums were in 
fact illegal in spite of the act's containing nothing on its 
face to prove them so, and that the legal taxes of 1722 
were now already collected and could not be affected by a 
disallowance, they recommended that the act be disal- 
lowed. During the whole procedure the Massachusetts 
General Court had made a poor showing. Its agents had 
been sent no instructions and, not knowing how to proceed, 
had thrown their efforts into causing a delay. Not until 
the day of the hearing before the Board of Trade did the 
General Court take up the matter, at that time ordering 
instructions sent to the Massachusetts agents in London 
for the defense of the province ; but it is doubtful whether 
they were ever prepared. 

The official arrival of the Massachusetts tax act of 
1723, during the course of proceedings, sent Partridge 
back to the Board of Trade to hurry it on to the Privy 
Council,^^^ but the final Order related only to the earlier 
act. 

This Order in Council of June 2, 1724, was triumph- 
antly reported to the London Meeting for Sufferings of 
July 3^*^ and sent off to New England. Tho the order 
therefore reached the Lieutenant-Governor of Massachu- 
setts in a roundabout way, it was given full value.^"*^ 
Governor and Council ordered the sheriff of Bristol 

^'^^Acts of the Privy Council. Ill, 59 ; Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 277; 
Backus, Baptists, I, 504; 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., II, 170-171, Sewall's Letter 
Book. 

^'^'^London M. for Sufferings, XXIII, 402. 

14-The Quakers were in too great haste to wait for a delivery by the 
government as this might mean further delay. It is probable that the 
order was brought to Rhode Island by Thomas Richardson. It was placed 
in the hands of "one of the assistants" of Rhode Island who in turn gave 
it to Charles Church, Sheriff of Bristol County. Church submitted it to 
the Lieutenant-Governor and received his orders. Land. Yr. M., VI, 301 ; 
6 Mass. Hist. Colls., II, 171, Sewall's Letter Book; Moses Brown Papers, 
"Papers regarding imprisonment of Quakers;" Epistles Sent, II, 378-379. 



126 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [580 

County^^^ to see it carried out; and Joseph Anthony, John 
Sisson, John Akin and Philip Taber, after an imprison- 
ment of fifteen months, were set free. 

This was the literal fulfilment of an order which 
related only to the tax act and imprisonment of 1722. The 
bill of 1723, passed in June and definitely stating the 
reason for the high rate on Dartmouth and Tiverton, had 
been followed by the imprisonment of delinquent assessors 
far more speedily than its predecessor. Jacob Taber and 
Beriah Goddard, assessors of Dartmouth, failed to make 
the rate on their town.^^"* Tiverton had neglected to qualify 
any assessors whatsoever. ^^^ In August, when the order 
came for the release of the prisoners of 1722, the Massa- 
chusetts government showed no inclination to be more 
liberal than necessary. Taber and Goddard had been in 
Bristol gaol almost nine months,^^^ but were obliged to see 
the others depart without them. Their release which came 
in November was the result of a petition from Henry 
Howland, the third of Dartmouth's selectmen, who ex- 
plained that he was unable to do his dutj^ in making 
assessments or performing the other functions of his office 
because of the absence of his colleagues. The committee 
of the upper house to which the matter was referred re- 
turned a significant report. 

That whereas His Majtys Royall Pleasure has been lately signified to this 
Government for remitting the Additional Tax of the same Nature with 
this withinmentioned laid by the Genii Court upon the Towns of Dart- 
mouth & Tiverton in the Year 1722 & for releasing from Imprisonment 

i^^The expenses incurred by Charles Church, sheriff of Bristol County, 
in committing the assessors of Dartmouth and Tiverton to gaol in the two 
years 1722 and 1723 amounted to 8 pounds and 7 shillings. In June, 1724, 
the General Court ordered the general sessions of the peace to take this 
account into consideration, and in November, 1725, allowed the sum from 
the province treasury. Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 457, ch. 68; 650, ch. 198. 

^**The warrant for the arrest of Taber and Goddard is preserved 
among the Moses Brown Papers. 

'^*^Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 441, ch. 26; 457, ch. 68. 

i*^The financial assistance which the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting 
voted to John Akin and Philip Taber was repeated for Jacob Taber and 
Beriah Goddard. Dartmouth Mo. M., 183. 



581] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 127 

the persons committed to Gaoll on the same account on which the persons 
withinnamed were committed, It may be therefore adviseable for this 
Court to testify their ready & dutiful Compliance with His Majties de- 
clared Will and Pleasure in this Matter, by ordering that the Said Jacob 
Tabor & Beriah Goddard be released from Imprisonment, Upon the said 
Tabor & Goddard's paying or giving Sufficient Security to the province 
Treasurer for the payment of the Sum of £81.12/, laid on the said Town 
as their proportion of the province Tax for ye year 1723.1^" 

In Tiverton further trouble was averted by the failure 
of the General Court and the Bristol justices to keep a 
minister in the town for any length of time. Theophilus 
Pickering who was procured in 1722 was paid in two 
instalments the seventy-two pounds eleven shillings prom- 
ised him/^^ but left "after a Years Trial being Discouraged 
by the preverse and Untractable Temper & Carriage of 
the Said people."^^'' In 1723 the General Court was unable 
to find anyone. ^^° This failure ended the immediate quar- 
rel of the authorities with the town for it was now ordered 
that the treasurer of the province receive the sum of 
twenty-seven pounds nine shillings as Tiverton's tax for 
the year.^^^ This was the last attempt which the General 
Court made to establish or assist orthodoxy in Tiverton. 
Dartmouth had at least two more gTants, one of thirty 
pounds in 1724 and another in 1725, but these sums were 
not added to the province tax.^^^ 

The Quakers and Baptists had won their case. There 
was no further attempt by the General Court to add min- 
isterial rates to a town's province tax. The next efforts 
of the dissenters were directed toward procuring laws 
which should make it unnecessary to pay ministerial 
charges even when they were, as normally, a part of the 
town rate. 

^*''Mass. Prov. Lazes, X, 498, ch. 191 ; Lond. Yr. M., VI, 299 ; Lond. 
M. for Sufferings, XXIII, 437-438. 

'^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, X, 387, ch. 308. 

149/fcjU, X, 458, ch. 69. 

^'-^Ibid., X, 317, ch. 78; 387, ch. 308. 

^^^'^Ibid., X, 458, ch. 69. 

^^^Ibid., X, 541, ch. 311; 598, ch. 62. 



128 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [582 

Thomas Kichardson, returning to New England soon, 
after the important June 2, when the Order in Council 
was secured, carried with him the large bills of expense 
which he and Partridge had been obliged to incur in pur- 
suing their object. The total amount was one hundred 
fifty-eight pounds fifteen shillings and five pence. ^^^ Rich- 
ard Partridge soon afterwards wrote that if further solici- 
tations in England were desired more funds would be 
needed.^^* 

In succeeding months the General Court, altho the 
Order in Council was obeyed, and even the prisoners of 
1723 discharged, was not inclined to go farther with the 
laws which the Quakers demanded. As a result the former 
troubles continued. The ministerial rate was assessed 
with the town charges and the constable was under obli- 
gation to collect, distrain, or imprison as need be. Espe- 
cially^ in the vicinity of Dartmouth, where the recent suc- 
cess of the Quakers had caused much feeling, difficulty 
was inevitable and the old question between the land own- 
ers of the Elizabeth Islands and the town of Chilmark 
was revived. Peleg Slocum and John Tucker, whose case 
had been carried to the Assembly seven years before, were 
again under the law. Upon their failure to pay a rate for 
building a meeting house in Chilmark, John Mayliew, 
constable of the town, seized eighty sheep belonging to 
Slocum and a horse and a heifer which were the property 
of Tucker. The sheep sold for seven pounds more than the 
demand, and Tucker's property for five pounds in excess, 
so that the usual complaint of exorbitant distraint was 
entered.^^^ A rumor of this incident reaching the Rhode 

i^^The largest item, John Sharpe's account, was 57 pounds 3 shillings 
3 pence toward which Partridge had paid 15 pounds 15 shillings in April, 
leaving a balance of 41 pounds 8 shillings 3 pence. To the Clerk of the 
Council had been owing 30 pounds 8 shillings 6 pence. The rest was due 
Partridge. The New England Yearly Meeting had already paid 91 pounds 
18 shillings 11 pence, and the London Friends 20 pounds 17 shillings 9 
pence, leaving only the small remainder of 4 pounds 10 shillings 6 pence. 
Moses Brown Papers. 

I-'*/?. /. Quart. M., 139. 

^'^"^ Dart mouth Mo. M., 182-183. 



583] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 129 

Island Quarterly Meeting, it was ordered immediately, 
that an exact account of the matter be prepared, as agita- 
tion was already beginning for another mighty effort to 
be released from the "oppression of Prebyterian &c. 
Priests."^^*^ 

This was the situation confronting the Yearly Meeting 
when in June, 1725, it met at Newport. Thanks were first 
of all voted to the London Friends whose energy had se- 
cured the Order in Council of the previous year with the 
added request that they return the NeAV England Meet- 
ing's hearty acknowledgment to the King for this favor.^^^ 
In considering sufferings, "all on Accott of Priests Rates 
and building their Meeting hous at Chilmark," it was 
agreed that the London Friends had been so much more 
successful than the petitioners at Boston that the account 
of this situation, no more trivial than the troubles of Akin 
and Taber, should be sent to England. But in the message 
which John Wanton and Thomas Richardson were re- 
quested to send to Richard Partridge, they were to state 
that if money was needed for further solicitation, as he 
had warned them it would be, he was to take it on interest 
until the Yearly Meeting could make him a remittance. 

Experience had shown the New Englanders that prog- 
ress through the various bodies in England dealing with 
British colonial government was so slow that, if immediate 
relief was to be gained, it must be through the authorities 
at Boston. Accordingly another committee was asked to 
travel to Boston as speedily as possible, apply to the 
General Court, and report their success to John Wanton 
and Thomas Richardson that it might be included in the 
letter to Partridge.^^^ 

Results were not so gratifying as to deter the English 
Quakers from complying with the request of the Dart- 
mouth Friends. On the second of September, just three 
months after the Yearly Meeting had sent its message, and 

"6/^. /. Qtiart. M., 138. 

^^'Epistles Reed, II, 378, Epistle from N. E. Yr. M., 1725. 

158 AT. E. Yr. M., 122. 



130 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [584 

four days after the London Meeting for Sufferings Lad 
made him head of a committee,^ ^'^ Partridge was again 
before the Privy Council. On this day the register records 
reference to committee of the 

petition of Richard Partridge on behalf of Peleg Slociim, John Tucker, 
and other Quakers, inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay,] who are under 
Severe Sufferings for Conscience Sake, praying the Repeal of such Laws 
past in that Province as Directly or Consequently affect the Liberties, 
Properties, Religion or Consciences of His Majestys Protestant Subjects 
in the said Province, etc.^^o 

The fate of this petition was not due to lack of funds^^^ 

^^^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXVI, 22-23. 
^^^Acts of the Privy Council, III, 121. 

i^^The money which the New England Yearly Meeting of 1725 told 
Richard Partridge to take on interest until it could be raised in New 
England Partridge advanced himself, and by June, 1725, the New England 
collectors had sent him 120 pounds. As more was still needed the New 
England Yearly Meeting of 1726 voted 150 pounds additional which was 
apportioned, 100 pounds to Rhode Island Quarterly, 20 pounds to Sand- 
wich and Scituate, and 30 pounds to Salem. N. E. Yr. M., 125, 127; 
Dartmouth Mo. M., 185, 189; Epistles Rec'd, II, 386, Epistle from N. E. 
Yr. M., 1726. The money was assessed by the several quarterly meetings 
on their monthly meetings and by the latter upon the weekly meetings. 
R. I. Quart. M., 144. 

A little later someone conceived the idea of making a generous gift 
in money to Partridge to express the appreciation of the New England 
Yearly Meeting. The idea was adopted at the Yearly Meeting of 1728 
which also apportioned the sum on the quarterly meetings, the latter 
continuing the method as before. A'^. E. Yr. M., 132. The amount (60 
pounds) was assessed as follows : — 

fR. I. Mo £24 

Dartmouth £10 

Nantucket £6 

Providence o i omitted because not affected by 

Greenwich o \ Massachusetts law. 

Sandwich & Scituate j Sandwich Mo £5 5/ 

£8 I Scituate £2 15/ 

„ . i Salem Mo £5 

jg < Hampton & Amesbury £3 10/ 

( Dover £3 10/ 

It was all reported paid by June, 1729. A''. E. Yr. M., 135, 136; Mo. M. 
Book of Scituate, Marsh field and Duxbury, 59; R. I. Quart. M., 154-155; 
Sandwich Mo. M., 127; Salem Quart. M., II, 7; Salem Mo. M., 88 b. 



R. I. Quart., 
£40 



585] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 131 

or of interest^ *^- or even Quaker influence, but to the polit- 
ical situation in England. In the London epistle to Rhode 
Island of September, 1726, the London Quakers wrote: 

As to ye Sufferings ffriends are still under in the Massacusets Government 
on account of Priests maintenance, there has been some steps taken in 
Order to obtain a more General Ease, in that Case, which at present lyes 
for a more suitable Opportunity to prosecute it in, and then we hope ye 
Necessary care will not be neglected.^^^ 

A year later they were still saying that "the present state 
of publick affairs will not allow us to move for anything of 
this Nature."^ *^^ The end of George I's reign had come 
very inopportunely for the Quakers. Since 1723 a change 
had come over the British Board of Trade in the appoint- 
ment of the Duke of Newcastle as Secretary of State, for 
his assumption of control in colonial affairs was removing 
authority from the Board. In spite of the close relation 
between the Quaker body and both Walpole and Newcastle, 
it was impossible to accomplish anything during the stress 
of circumstances attending the close of George II's reign, 
as the Whig leaders were engaged in the vital issue of 
maintaining control of the government. 

The failure of the London Meeting to succeed with the 
petition of 1725-1727 turned responsibility back upon the 
New England Yearly Meeting, altho it was known that the 
London Meeting planned to renew its application when a 
suitable season appeared.^ ^^ Sufferings in Massachusetts 
continued^*^^ and resulted in the further work of Joseph 
Wanton and Richard Borden before the General Court.^^'^ 
Funds for their work were voted by the Yearly Meeting^ ^^ 

is^The London Meeting for Sufferings listened to the report of 
progress which Partridge submitted on September 3, 1725, the day follow- 
ing his visit to the Council, and brought the matter up at each meeting 
through the five following weeks. Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXIV, 
23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31 ; Epistles Sent, II, 392. See also N. E. Yr. M., 130, 
Epistle to London, 1727. 

"^^^Epistles Sent, II, 399-400. Epistle to N. E. Yr. M., 1727. 

^«*Ibid., n, 416, Epistle to N. E. Yr. M., 1727. 

^^^N. E. Yr. M., 133-134, Epistle to London, 1728. 

^^^Salem Quart. M., II, 3; R. I. Quart. M., 153. 

i«7/?. /. Quart. M., 153. 

i68iV. E. Yr. M., 131-132. 



132 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [586 

and their efforts were suddenly crowned by the passage of 
the law of June 20, 1728.^*^^ After a preamble which cites 
the fact that application had frequently been made to the 
court in behalf of these people who refused to pay taxes 
for the support of the ministry, "alledging a scruple of 
conscience for such their refusal," the law stated that 
hereafter any belonging to a society of Anabaptists or 
Quakers should be exempt from having their "polls" taxed 
for such an object, "nor shall their bod(ie) (y)s be at any 
time taken in execution to satisfy any such ministerial rate 
or tax assess'd upon their estates or faculty," provided 
such persons were in the habit of attending their own 
meeting on the Lord's day and lived within tive miles of a 
place of worship. Of the Quakers, whose opinions the 
orthodox were likely to regard with suspicion, a declara- 
tion of fidelity and belief in the Trinity and divine inspi- 
ration of the Scriptures was demanded, to be given before 
the court of general sessions. To discover who these Ana- 
baptists and Quakers might be, some one of one denomi- 
nation or the other, appointed by the justices in each 
county, was to bring annually to the court of general 
sessions a list of persons professing themselves to be Ana- 
baptist or Quaker and in the habit of attending meeting, 
these lists to be submitted hj the clerk of the peace to the 
assessors of each town or precinct. Upon all not exempt 
the assessors were ordered to levy the rate, and only they 
who paid the tax for support of orthodox religion could 
vote in any matter relating to the ministry of the town. 
The act was to be in force for five years.^^'' 

The inclusion of Baptists as well as Quakers in the 
exemption law of 1728 is suggestive of the close connection 
between the two sects in Massachusetts. While the Bap- 
tist teachings, particularly in those Baptist sects which 

i^^The Baptists and Quakers seem to have ignored entirely the law- 
passed December 19, 1727, in favor of the Church of England, by which 
the ministerial taxes taken from Churchmen were to be paid over to their 
own clergymen. Such an arrangement was entirely distasteful to the 
opponents of an "hireling ministry," like the Quakers. 

''^''^Mass. Proi\ Laws. II, 494, ch. 4. 



587] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 133 

were Calvinistic, resembled Congregational far more than 
Quaker doctrine, theology was not the point at issue. 
Some of the Baptists, like the Quakers, disapproved of a 
paid ministry; others were opposed to public taxation for 
the ministry even when the money was made over to a 
Baptist preacher; all refused to submit to taxation for the 
support of a sect to which they did not belong. As they 
were far less numerous in Massachusetts than the Quakers 
and lacked entirely the centralized organization of the 
Friends, their early work was unsystematic and their ap- 
peals came only from small and scattered groups. In 
general they were willing to let the Quaker body assume 
responsibility, standing with them when occasion offered. 
Their discomforts were no less than the Quakers', as the 
extant records show, and in the famous case of 1723, when 
the Dartmouth and Tiverton town officers were imprisoned, 
two were Baptists and two Quakers. 

While there were scattered Baptists of one sort or 
another in most of the towns where Quakerism flourished 
the only well organized church outside of Boston, whose 
existence was recognized in the period under discussion, 
was the one at Swansea. Such complaints as reached the 
Massachusetts government directly from Baptists came 
from this group; but because of the special dispensations 
which were made in favor of Baptists living in the town 
itself, these complaints usually originated with the mem- 
bers of the Swansea church who belonged to neigliboring 
villages. Most determined in their efforts to resist minis- 
terial taxes were the Baptists in the near-by town of 
Kehoboth who felt the weight of the law when they tried 
to ally themselves with the group at Swansea. They ap- 
pealed to the governor on more than one occasion in 
Dudley's time, seeing the cordiality with which lie met 
Quaker petitions,^ ^^ and in 1715, after his removal, they 
sent an account of their difficulties to the King through 
the agency of the S. P. G.^^^ At the time of the arrest of 

''^''^Mass. Archives, XI, 223, 388. 
"25-. p. G. Papers, B I, No. 169. 



134 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [588 

the Dartmouth and Tiverton assessors, Elder Ephraim 
Wheaton of Kehoboth and Thomas Hollis of London were 
in correspondence in regard to the taxes imposed and Hol- 
lis showed a willingness to take some active measures in 
the affair.^ ^^ The work of these Baptists was suflScient to 
keep their difficulties in view, and the legislation of 1728 
included Baptists as well as Quakers in the exemption 
granted. 

This was the first law made in Massachusetts which 
in any way exempted these two sects from the financial 
oppression of the ecclesiastical legislation. Such as it was 
it went into effect.^ "^ How little relief it afforded the 
unhappy dissenters may be seen in their further action. 
No expression of gratitude came from the next Yearly 
Meeting at Newport and no change appears in the general 
condition of the two sects ; the dissenters found the system 
too bungling to be practicable, and the five mile limit 
upset the whole affair for many of them.^''^^ The general 
opinion found expression in the words of the Rhode Island 
Quarterly Meeting which met in the following month and 
agreed that "the Assembly last Seting in Boston have done 
little or Nothing for the case of Sufferings ffds," and again 
asked Joseph Wanton and Richard Borden 

to continue their Endevours with the Authority there, for a discharge 
from these Sufferings they are under and if not Obtain'd to collect, those 
papers & Coppyes which may be propper to be Sent to our ffriends in 
England which may Enable them the better to seek for Releif there and 
bring the charge thereof to Our Next Quarterly Meeting.^'''^ 

At the end of three months Wanton and Borden had spent 
eleven pounds and sixteen shillings but had no encourage- 
ment to offer and at the end of a half year had "not pro- 

i73\yheaton to Hollis, 13 March, 1723, quoted in Backus, Baptists, 
r, 509-sio. 

i^*Several orders of Bristol sessions relating to the making of lists 
under this law appear in the records. Bristol Sessions, III B, 109, 126. 

i^^Backus, Baptists, I, 518-519. Such as it was it deterred the London 
Quakers from further application to the government. Lond. M. for Suf- 
ferings, XXIV, 231. 

"^"^^R. I. Quart. M., 154; Sandwich Mo. M., 127; Diary of John Comer, 
62; R. I. Quart. M., 160; Salem Quart. M., II, 7; N. E. Yr. M., 136. 



589] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 135 

ceeded any farder with the Assembly at Boston on behalf 
of Suffering ffriends."^"" In spite of this they were con- 
tinued by the Yearly Meeting^"* and through their work 
further legislation was produced. 

This second law, secured like the first one by the 
efforts of a committee, backed by the Yearly and the 
quarterly meetings, was passed December 20, 1729. The 
preamble explained that by the preceding act the polls 
only of Anabaptists and Quakers were exempted from 
charge in the support of the ministers of the churches by 
law established, and the law now ordered that the estates, 
real and personal, of such Anabaptists and Quakers should 
be exempt from taxation for the support of ministers. A 
proviso, occasioned by the troubles at Chilmark, at the 
same time made it clear that no person was to be freed 
from the charge toward building any meeting house when 
the assessment had already been made. This law was 
enacted for three years and a half.^^^ 

While this legislation seemed more favorable to the 
dissenters than that of the preceding year, it came little 
nearer to solving their difficulties on account of its rigid 
limitation.^ **^ Among some of the Quakers there was a dis- 
tinct aversion to taking advantage of the privilege offered 
by this or the preceding legislation, on the ground that 
exemption was not liberty.^^^ Troubles continued which 
were reported to the Yearly Meeting in the following sum- 
jjjgj. 182 r[ijjg result of these reports was a further appoint- 
ment of John Wanton and Thomas Richardson to send the 
accounts of sufferings to England with an appeal that the 
English Friends renew their endeavors, while Joseph 

1777?. /. Quart. M., 156, 157. 

178 AT. E. Yr. M., 136, 137. 

^'^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 543, ch. 6; Backus, Baptists, I, 519. 

isoThis legislation was described by the Quakers as "something 
tending to our ease but not fully in Such Manner as ffriends can Accept." 
A^. E. Yr. M., 142. 

^^^Bristol Sessions, III B, 146, 147. 

182A/-. E. Yr. M., 139, 140. 



136 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [590 

Wanton and Richard Borden were ordered to give any 
possible assistance.^^^ 

This last vote of the New England Yearly Meeting to 
apply for help from the London Friends was made unneces- 
sary by the appointment of Jonathan Belcher as Governor 
of Massachusetts. The basis of Belcher's kindness toward 
Quakers was not, as in Dudley's case, that larger policy of 
colonial control toward which each question as it appeared 
was forced to bend. Succeeding governors had been on the 
whole neutral, leaving matters to their councils, which as 
the years passed showed growing leniencj^, opposed only 
by the lower house. With the coming of Belcher the 
weight of the governor was thrown heavily on the side of 
the Quakers. The family connection between Belcher and 
Richard Partridge was the primary cause for Belcher's 
interest in the Quakers and had been the means of his 
making many friends among that body in England. ^^* 
Their wealth, organized power and political influence with 
the Whig leaders he had recognized and, looking into the 
future, saw the possibility of securing the support of the 
whole organization by assuming the cause of the local 
meetings in his province.^^^ Just before leaving England 
he received a delegation of prominent English Friends sent 
to him by the London Meeting for Sufferings to solicit his 
support for the New England Quakers.^^*^ 

Jonathan Belcher's opening speech to the Assembly, 
while not making special reference to Quakers, recom- 
mended that they "imitate the Royal Indulgence of our 

i83A^. E. Yr. M., 140. 

18* J. Belcher to J. Belcher Jr., 12 Aug., 1732, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VI, 164; same to same. 12 Nov., 1740, ibid., VII, S23-524. The Belcher 
Papers contain a good deal of correspondence between Belcher and 
English Quakers ; the names which most often appear are those of Rich- 
ard Partridge, John Gurney and Thomas Hyam, Richard Partridge was 
Jonathan Belcher's brother-in-law. 

18^ J. Belcher to Rip Van Dam, 11 Oct., 1731. 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VI, 451 ; J. Belcher to F. Harrison, 15 Nov., 1731, ibid., VI, 455; J. Belcher 
to R. Partridge, 30 Oct., 1739, Ibid., VII, 236. 

^^^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXIV, 352, 356. 



591] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 137 

gracious Sovereign, that none of our Laws may carry in 
them a Spirit of Eigour or Severity towards those who 
consciently differ from us in the modes of divine wor- 
ship."^^" Among the New England Friends Belcher's rep- 
utation had preceded him and his coming was looked upon 
with delight.^^^ He had not been in the province two 
months when almost simultaneously two of the quarterly 
meetings determined to address him in behalf of the 
Friends, while one of the monthly meetings took steps to 
show a personal allegiance at the expense of its loyalty to 
the Assembly. It was Dartmouth which signed a paper to 
be sent to Belcher "signifying our willingness to Comply 
with giving him his Salary according to the King's Instruc- 
tions."^^^ In the meantime the Sandwich Quarterly Meet- 
ing appointed two of its members to write and sign a paper 
in behalf of Friends for Belcher's inspection,^^" and the 
Rhode Islanders, meeting a few days later, once more 
charged Joseph Wanton and Richard Borden with their 
earlier duty. 

Sine Governer Belcher is arrived to the Government of the Massechusets, 
[runs their record,] and that while he was agent in London he Manifested 
An Inclination to discharge ffriends from Persecution on Account of 
Priests Rates It is thought propper for ffriends to Apply to him to see what 
Releif can be had Our ffriends Joseph Wanton & Richard Borden are 
therefore desired Either to goe or Wright to Sd Governer Belcher on 
that Account.191 

Not until they were reminded of this duty at the next 
Quarterly Meeting did Wanton and Borden set to work;^^^ 
but in the winter or early spring they obeyed the order, 
and were ready to report at the Yearly Meeting in June 
that they had found some encouragement from the new 
governor. Still nothing had been done yet and conditions 

'^^'^Pubs. of the Col. Soc. of Mass., Vol. I. Transactions, "Note on 
Quakers" by A. C. Goodell, 143 ; Palfrey, New Engiand, IV, 534. 
'^^^Dairy of Z Collins, 17. 
^^^Dartmouth Mo. M., 222. 
^^°Sandwich Quart. M., 22. 
191/?. /. Quart. M., 171. 
i92/&,-j., 171. 



138 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [592 

were far from satisfactory. ^^^ While Sandwich this year 
reported "Ease with respect to Priests Rates/' Rhode 
Island submitted an account of twenty-three pounds and 
seventeen shillings from the Rochester Friends for "Priests 
Rats," and Salem brought in the report from Kittery of 
ten pounds seventeen shilling and six pence.^*^^ As a result 
the Yearly Meeting continued the appointment of Joseph 
Wanton and Richard Borden, desiring them "to make far- 
der Application."^^^ It was now generally agreed that, 
since the Massachusetts governor had expressed himself 
as a friend to Quakers, the New England Meeting would 
no longer need to trouble Friends at home.^^"^ The London 
Meeting for Sufferings readily agreed to discontinue the 
"New England affair.''^^' 

The direct result of the appeals of the committee 
appointed and financed by the Yearly Meeting of 1731 was 
the law of December 24 of the same year. Belcher, writing 
to Partridge just before the opening of the fall session, 
said: 

The Assembly sits here again this week, and you may depend on every 
thing in my power for the relief of the Quakers, and I think I shall be 
able to get a bill past that will be pleasing. The Quakers are very sensible 
of my readiness & sincerity to serve them.^^^ 

On December 2 he addressed the Assembly referring to his 
earlier speech and spoke of the repeated applications which 
the Quakers were making. 

They are Generally, [said he,] a Sett of Vertuous and inoffensive people 
and good members of the Common Wealth and their Friends in England 
are a great Body of men, and esteemed as well as attached to His Majesty 
and His Royal House as any of the best of his Subjects ; I would therefore 
upon all these Considerations think it an Instance of your prudence and 
Wisdom to pass Some further Law for their Quiet and ease.^^^ 

igapor conditions in Bristol county at this time see Bristol Sessions, 
HI B, i6o. 

19W. E. Yr. M., 142. 

^^^Ibid., 143. The sum of 30 pounds was voted for the necessary 
expenses. Salem Mo. M., 93. 

^^^N. E. Yr. M., 144, Epistle to London, 1731 ; Land. Yr. M., VH, 331. 

^^'^Lond. M. for Sufferings, XXV, 40. 

198J. Belcher to R. Partridge, i Nov., 1731, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls, VI, ^7. 

^^^Mass Prov. Laws, II, 635. 



593] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 139 

A few days later, when writing to Partridge, Belcher en' 
closed a copy of this speech with the comment, 

"You'll see by my speech inclosed that I am leading the Assembly to the 
case of your Friends, and I have reason to believe by the influence I have 
on many of the members that a good bill will be past before the Court 

rises."-oo 

The bill was passed December 24, 1731. In the pre- 
amble it was expressly stated that the Quakers had been 
complaining of the difficulties in complying with the acts 
already made for their relief and had been making fre- 
quent applications to the court for redress. Its special 
provision of importance, occasioned by the difficulties met 
under the special certificate system described in the two 
preceding laws, was the new method for indicating who 
might be of the Quaker persuasion. The assessors of any 
town where Quakers were found or owned land, were an- 
nually to make a list of all such persons and give it to the 
town clerk to be entered in the town records and handed 
out at six pence a copy to any Quaker desiring to own one. 
If a Quaker found his name omitted he was to inform the 
assessors in writing, his statement certified by two of the 
principal members of his society, appointed by the society 
for that special purpose. All such were to be exempt from 
the payment of any taxes whatsoever for the support of 
the ministry or for building meeting houses.^*^^ This ex- 
plicit wording was to correct the troubles which the Quak- 
ers had suffered since 1728 and 1729. While exempt from 
certain rates, if once able to prove himself to be a Quaker 
living within five miles of a place of meeting, the Massa- 
chusetts Friend had found it was not easy to establish his 
identity, for advantage was taken of every technicality. 
The enforcement of this law for five years would prove 
whether this new method of exemption was practicable. 

In the passage of this bill Belcher's influence had been 
important^^^ and the results were gratifying. The lower 

200J. Belcher to R. Partridge, 7 Dec, 1731, 6 Mass. Hist Colls., VI, 82. 
-°^Mass. Prov. Lazvs, II, 619, ch. 11. 

202J. Belcher to R. Partridge, 3 Jan., 1731/32, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls.. 
VI, 94. 



140 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [594 

house had made it no small work for the governor, but the 
satisfaction of the Quakers and their allegiance to Belcher 
in after years were the reward. This Belcher frankly 
anticipated, expressing himself to Partridge in a letter as 
early as January 3, 1731/32.2^3 g^g ^jg^ confided to his 
son Jonathan the hope that the New England Yearly Meet- 
ing would present an address to the King in his behalf.^o* 
In this hope Belcher was disappointed, altho the New 
England Friends had much to say in his favor. The Yearly 
Meeting of 1732, the last which ever recorded "sufferings 
for priests rates," attributed the new law to Belcher^^^ and 
repeated recognition of his influence in the London epis- 
tles of the next three years.^^® The Yearly Meeting of 
1732 voted that 

An Acknowledgment be Rendered to the general Assembly for what 
ffavour they have Shown us & in a perticuler Manner to Governer Belcher 
who we understand has been candid in his Endevours on friends behalf 
and also to Acquaint Richard Partridge of the Governers ffavour 
therein. 207 

The delegation which presented this acknowledgment met 
a kind reception and found the governor "Pleased to Sig- 
nifie his Intentions of ffuture Kindness as it might fall 
with in his Power."^^^ 

The news from New England was quickly reported by 
Richard Partridge to the London Meeting for Sufferings 
which was instructed by the Yearly Meeting to "write to 
Such Persons in yt Government as have been Instrumental 
in Procureing this Great favour and to make such Grate- 
full acknowledgments of their kindness in this Eespect as 

203 J. Belcher to R. Partridge, 27 Apr., 1732. 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VI, 123. 

-°*J. Belcher to J. Belcher Jr., 28 Apr., 1732, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VI, 125. 

~°^Epistles Rec'd, II, 477, Epistle from N. E. Yr. M., 1732; Lond. M. 
for Sufferings, XXV, 246-247. 

'^o^ Epistles Rec'd, II, 488-489, 497, 506. 

20W. E. Yr. M., 145-146. 

208/fe,-rf.^ 148. 



595] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 141 

they shall think proper."^"^ Although Belcher was disap- 
pointed that no representation in his favor was sent to the 
King by either the New England Yearly Meeting or the 
London Meeting for Sufferings, he made the most of their 
memorials to himself.^ ^"^ 

Outside of the Quaker body the result of the law of 
1731 was to arouse both the Baptists and the Anglicans of 
the province. The law of 1731, unlike those which preceded 
it in 1728 and 1729, was limited to the Quaker sect and 
did not include Baptists. As the law of 1729 expired in 
1733 and nothing had succeeded it regarding Baptists, 
advantage was immediately taken of this fact. A number 
of Baptists in Bristol County were taxed for ministerial 
rates and some even imprisoned for non-payment.^^^ Upon 
application to the legislature they were released and a law 
made for the Baptists similar to that of 1731 for Quakers. 
This law, passed July 4, 1734, repeated the Quaker legis- 
lation of the earlier year M'ith the added proviso that 
the act should not extend to new towns granted with the 
customary condition of settling an orthodox minister and 
erecting a meeting house, until these things had been 
accomplished.^^- This law was practically reenacted on 
June 30, 1740, for seven years.^^^ 

In the meantime the Quaker law of 1731 had started 
a commotion in the Episcopal camp, as the adherents to 
the Church of England, tho they were the first sect to gain 
some exemption, had made no aldVances since 1727 and were 
under greater disabilities in 1731 than either the Quakers 
or Baptists. Immediately after Belcher's speech to the as- 

209Lonrf. M. for Sufferings, XXV, 155. The success of Massachusetts 
made a profound impression upon the English Quakers on account of the 
resistance which they were making to payment of tithes. Papers relating 
to the Quakers Tythe Bill, 5. 

210J. Belcher to [T.] Richardson, 14 Aug., 1732, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VI, 481; J. Belcher to J. Belcher Jr., 18 Sept., 1732, ibid., VI, 182; J. 
Belcher to R. Partridge, 21 May, 1734, ibid., VI, 462. 

2iiBackus, Baptists, II, 30. 

-''■-Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 714, ch. 6. 

-'-^Ibid., II, 1021, ch. 6; Backus, Baptists, II, 34- 



142 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [596 

sembly of December 2 and the appointment by the lower 
house of a committee to prepare a draught of a bill for the 
relief of the Quakers, came a memorial from Roger Price of 
King's Chapel to the Governor, Council and House of Rep- 
resentatives. In it Price called attention to the fact that the 
members of the Church of England suffered the same diffi- 
culties and discouragements as the Quakers, as they were 
not exempted from taxes for the Congregational minister 
unless living within five miles of a church and not even then 
if the church lay outside of the province, and had suffered 
both distraint and imprisonment.-^^ Belcher, upon viewing 
this memorial, appeared sympathetic and promised his in- 
terest, and a joint committee of the two houses was ap- 
pointed to take it into consideration. In spite of this the 
case of the Anglicans was allowed to slide and the officials 
of King's Chapel and Christ Church, seeing the Quaker law 
was about to pass, decided to raise a sum of money and ap- 
ply to the crown for its disallowance.-^^ The churchmen 
were so far successful that the answer from the Privy Coun- 
cil, dated February 2, 1736, stated that only the fact that it 
was a temporary law, about to expire, prevented the Lords 
Justices from asking for its repeal. This statement was 
made on the ground that, as the charter of Massachusetts 
granted a liberty of conscience to all Christians except 
Papists, consequently such exemption ought not to have 
been limited to any one sect, but extended to all Protest- 
ants. Since the act was so near expiration it did not seem 
necessary to call for its repeal, but to prevent a renewal 
or the passage of similar acts it was recommended that an 
additional instruction be prepared for the governor to 
forbid him to give his assent to any such law unless the 
exemption be made general. The Board of Trade was 
accordingly directed to prepare such an instruction for 
Belcher. 2^® 

-i*Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 272-273, 

^i^Updike, Narragansett Church, II, 504-505. 

^'^^Pubs. of the Col. Soc. of Mass., Vol. I. Transactions, "Note on 
Quakers" by A. C. Goodell, 143; Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 635; Acts of the 
Privy Council, III, 491-492; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, 442 et seq. 



597] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 143 

The result of this order and the instruction to Belcher 
was not the cessation of Quaker legislation but the alter- 
native mentioned in the report of the Lords Committee. 
Already, on July 4, 1734, the Baptists had won their cause 
and a year later a law had been made which exempted the 
polls and the estates of the Episcopalians for five years. 
It was far from satisfactory but its passage gave Belcher 
the right to listen to the next appeals which came from 
his friends the Quakers. The Yearly Meeting of 1736, 
foreseeing that the law of 1731 was about to expire, de- 
cided to speak for its renewal with the possibility of greater 
concessions, and appointed a committee to attend the Gen- 
eral Court.^^^ The result of their work was the law of 
June 28, 1737, which practically renewed the legislation 
of 1731 for ten years.^^^ Corresponding legislation for the 
Baptists was obtained in 1740. -^'^ Altho the Friends had 
hoped for a greater satisfaction at this time they were 
forced to admit that the old inconveniences were no longer 
troublesome.-^^ 

While making this confession the Yearly Meeting of 
1738 failed to vote Governor Belcher the expression of 
appreciation which he was expecting. This omission came 
at an awkward moment in his affairs for he was growing 
more and more certain that his removal was approaching 
and was gathering together all possible elements which 
might support him.-^^ Of great importance among these 
were the English Quakers to whom he wrote asking that 
they would use their influence with Walpole and the Duke 
of Newcastle to have him retained as governor of Massa- 
chusetts.-^^ A petition presented in his behalf by Richard 

21 W. E. Yr. M., 159, 163, 165; Epistles Rcc'd, II, 543. 

2i8Majj. Prov. Laws, II, 876, ch. 6. 

'^''■^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 1021, ch. 6. 

220Ar. E. Yr. M., i68. Epistle to London, 1738. 

22iThere was apparently at this time a certain coolness toward Belcher 
among the New England Quakers which was reflected in the London 
Meeting for Sufferings. Diary of Z. Collins, 10 Nov., 1737; R. L Quart. 
M., 198; Loud. M. for Sufferings, XXVI, 324, 354; XXVII, 34-35. 

222 J. Belcher to R. Partidge, 15 Jan., 1739/40, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VII, 262. 



144 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [598 

Partridge in January, 1739/40, referred to the work he 
had done for the Quakers of Massachusetts.-^^ In recog- 
nititon of these services of the English Friends, which 
tided the matter over for another year. Belcher sent a 
memorial of thanks ''To my good & worthy Friends, the 
people calPd Quakers, in Gt Britain," dated May 9, 1740, 
which speaks of "the great respect & friendship you have 
manifested to me upon the many efforts my enemies have 
been making to have the comissns I have the honour 
to hold superseded." "I shall take all occasions," wrote 
Belcher, "to return the late kind offices you have acted 
towds me in evry reasona way & manner yt can be desired 
or expected."^-^ In private letters likewise to London 
Friends Belcher expressed himself strongly in this same 
strain,-^^ placing in the Quakers such confidence as later 
events failed somewhat to justify.-^*' An application in 
the autumn of 1740 failed to secure what Belcher had 
hoped for—^ and he was superseded in the following year. 
In spite of their failure Belcher never lost regard for this 
body of people.-^^ 

^^^Mass. Prov. Lazvs, II, 6^6. 

2246 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 505. 

225J. Belcher to R. Partidge, i May, 1740, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 
284; same to same, 7 May, 1740, ibid., VII, 284; J. Belcher to Bubb 
Dodington, 8 May, 1740, ibid., VII, 295-297; J. Belcher to [T.l Hyam and 
J. Gurney, 9 May, 1740, ibid., VII, 505. To his son Belcher wrote (19 
May, 1740) "I can't enough express my gratitude for his [Richard Par- 
tridge's] great & unwearied care, vigilance & fidelity to my interest & 
service. Such a friend is worth the name of one & my heart is fir'd with 
gratitude to the whole body of Quakers who have at this juncture given 
such signal proof of their sincerity to serve me at a time when I so much 
wanted their interest & friendship." Ibid., VII, 301. 

226"! really beleive an earnest letter sign'd by Mr. Gurney, Hyam & 
some other of your principal Friends & directed to Sr. Rob could still 
secure me in both provinces." J. Belcher to R. Partridge, 20 May, 1740, 6 
Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 507 ; J. Belcher to [T.] Hyam, 25 Oct., 1740, ibid., 

VII, 522. 

227J. Belcher to R. Partridge, 26 Jan., 1740/41, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., 
VII, 363 ; J. Belcher to J. Belcher Jr., 27 Jan., 1740/41, ibid., VII, 366-367. 

228J. Belcher to R. Partridge, 7 May, 1741, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., VII, 
382; same to same, 31 Aug., 1741, ibid., VII, 546; J. Belcher to J. Belcher 



599] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 145 

The progress made by the Quakers of Massachusetts 
in securing exemption from the ecclesiastical laws of the 
province falls into three distinct periods: — from the be- 
ginning to 1718; 1718 to 1730; 1730 to 1740. 1. In the 
first of these periods the various local meetings of New 
England were busy with the collection of sufferings and 
with numerous petitions to governor and council, con- 
stantly reporting their progress to the London Yearly 
Meeting. The English Quakers paid careful attention to 
these reports, studied Massachusetts legislation and took 
certain measures to secure relief for the New England 
Friends. During this time, however, they were not push- 
ing this case with the Board of Trade and the Privy 
Council. 2. In 1718 the London Meeting for Sufferings, 
now informed of the existence of a fund in the treasury of 
the New England Yearly Meeting to support a Quaker 
protest in England, determined to address the King in 
Council on Massachusetts affairs, and from then until 1730 
was almost constantly before the government upon this 
business. A temporary pause was made in 1719 when the 
rumor was circulated that the Massachusetts General 
Court was about to pass a law favoring Quakers; but in 
1723-1724 the test case of the Dartmouth and Tiverton 
assessors was pushed to a successful conclusion. A fur- 
ther petition (1725-1727) failed to secure attention be- 
cause of the stress of the political situation in England, 
coming as it did just at the close of George I's reign. 
3. In 1730 the London Meeting agreed not to pursue the 
matter further as a governor favorable to the Quakers had 
reached Massachusetts. From that time on the con- 
test was in Boston and was finally won through Belcher's 
influence. 

While Belcher's work for the Quaker cause was im- 
portant, the result would have been impossible without the 
great change which had come over both houses of the Gen- 

Jr., 17 June, 1741, ibid., VII, 542. Belcher's late appointment as governor 
of New Jersey has been attributed to the work of the English Quakers. 
Palfrey, New England, IV, 562, note. 



146 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [600 

era! Court since 1700. The Council had first grown more 
liberal, far less provincial as it always was than the lower 
house; and in later years the representatives had been 
forced into line by authoritative messages from England. 
The royal disallowance of a law had to receive recogni- 
tion; and it was useless to pass further legislation which 
would suffer similar treatment. In relation to an ecclesi- 
astical question the opinions of crown officials Avere con- 
sistent with the general policy of imperial control. The 
General Court of Massachusetts had been resisting impe- 
rial authority, and the case of the Quakers was decided in 
1724 at the cost of the Massachusetts assembly. Such had 
been the policy of Joseph Dudley as the exponent of the 
imperial system. While he was, on the whole, anxious to 
suppress unruly religious elements, he was distinctly favor- 
able to the Quakers. The weakness of the Quaker cause 
in his time was due to the fact that the question had not 
yet become a vital issue. 

The Order in Council of 1724 was not inconsistent 
with the Board of Trade's general policy ; but it could not 
have been obtained so easily had it not been for the support 
rendered the Massachusetts Quakers by the Society of 
Friends in England. In the time of William and Mary 
and during the opening years of Anne's reign, the English 
Quakers had been recognized as an important element in 
English society, representing large trading interests and 
great wealth. With the accession of George I they as- 
sumed once more a place of importance, at the return of 
the Whigs to power, and numbered among their ranks men 
who in later years were very close to Walpole and the 
Duke of Newcastle. Their interest in the Quaker cause 
in New England was kept constantly before the Board of 
Trade and the Privy Council by the work of the London 
Meeting for Sufferings through its important representa- 
tive, Richard Partridge. 

If the success of the Quakers of Massachusetts was 
directly due to the sympathy of Governor Belcher and the 
changed attitude of the General Court, both of these were 



601] THE QUAKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 147 

in turn dependent upon the political influence of tlie Lon- 
don Quakers under the Walpole regime. Belcher recog- 
nized their importance and adopted their cause with a 
view to future support from them ; the General Court saw 
the repeated successes of the Quakers with the Board of 
Trade and realized the uselessness of continued resistance. 
We shall next see how the same general conditions 
affected the cause of the Anglicans in Massachusetts. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Church of England. 

In the year 1691 there was but one Episcopal church 
in the whole province of Massachusetts Bay. By 1725 the 
number had increased to five, which included King's 
Chapel and Christ Church of Boston and the rural parishes 
of Bristol, Newbury and Marblehead. This growth was 
representative of the work which the Church of England 
was in this interval doing in the whole line of colonies 
from Maine to South Carolina and the West Indies. 

The advance made by the English Church in the years 
following the accession of William and Mary was not due 
to a consistent policy on the part of the English govern- 
ment. In spite of the close personal relation between 
William III. and Henry Compton, Bishop of London, 
William's reign, tho friendly to the low churchmen, was 
concerned especially in ecclesiastical affairs with the 
interests of the dissenters and was more or less indifferent 
to the ambitions of the English Church. In the reign of 
Anne the sympathy of the monarch was thrown in dis- 
tinctly with the interests of the Church, which was able to 
take unusual strides in the direction of exclusive rights 
during the Tory ascendency just preceding her death, but 
lost this preeminence in the succession of the House of 
Hanover. Unperfected plans were abandoned under the 
Whigs whom the accession of George I placed in power, 
and the authority which soon came to be exercised by 
Walpole did not in any way improve the situation, as he 
openly expressed a lack of sympathy.* 

^The relation between the government and the English colonial church 
during the reigns of Anne and the Georges may be followed in the Jour- 
nals of the S. P. G. Among the favorable actions taken in the later years 
of Anne's reign may be mentioned the Order in Council granting appeal 
from inferior courts to the Queen in Council without limitation, in eccle- 

148 



603] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 149 

It was therefore in a period of comparative indiffer- 
ence, so far as the government was concerned, that the 
great colonial work of the English Church was begun, and 
at the end of forty years was still vainly looking for gov- 
ernmental support. In spite of this deficiency very definite 
advances were made by the Church of England in the colo- 
nies through the work of individuals and organizations. 

Two particular forces came together to effect these 
results. On the one hand the Bishop of London, Henry 
Compton, early took a lively interest in the transat- 
lantic portion of his diocese, and through his whole life 
time did what lay in his power to advance the interests of 
the Church over the seas.- The influence which he did 
possess in William's reign was the result of his low church 
and Whig leanings which had earlier cost him his author- 
ity under James II. He had acted upon the committee of 
the Privy Council dealing with trade and foreign planta- 
tions,^ and later, at its organization, became an ex officio 
member of the Board of Trade. In questions which con- 

siastical cases, S. P. G. Letters, A VII, No. 49, Report of Board of Trade, 
25 Nov., 1712; 5". P. G. Journal, II, 212, 214, 258, July 1712 — Jan., 1712/13; 
the ready extension of the Queen's bounty to the Society's missionaries, 
Fothergill, List of Emigrant Ministers to America, 1690-1811; S. P. G.. 
Journal, II, 341 ; Popple to the Sec'y, 3 Feb., 1703/04, S. P. G. Letters, 
A I, No. 26; Queen Anne's approval of a colonial bishop, Cross, Ang. 
Episc, loi ; 5". P. G. Journal, II, 381. Under George I the attempt to 
establish bishoprics in America was abandoned. Cross, Ang. Episc., loi ; 
S. P. G. Journal, IV, 94, 4 Mar., 1719/20; and the whole period of the 
Walpole regime was full of disappointments. See attempt to have New 
Jersey act in favor of Quakers disallowed, S. P. G. Journal, III, 69, 372, 
385, 412; IV, 1-2, II, I July, 1715-19 Dec, 1718; question of the lands in 
St. Christopher, S. P. G. Journal, IV, 94, 96, March, 1719/20; Maryland 
act regarding ministers' salaries, S. P. G. Journal, V, 210, 211-12, 216, 225, 
June-Nov., 1729; bill in Parliament to restrain the disposition of lands, 
5". P. G. Journal, VII, 22, 23, 35, March-May, 1736. 

^Compton made an attempt to secure a legal basis for his authority 
in the colonies ; he obtained from Charles II a bounty of twenty pounds 
for each minister and schoolmaster going to the West Indies ; he insti- 
tuted the practice of appointing commissaries ; he was instrumental in 
securing the charter of the S. P. G. Cross, Ang. Episc, 25-36. 

^Cross, Ang. Episc, 31 ; Dickerson, Am. Col. Gov., 19. 



150 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [604 

cerned ecclesiastical affairs in the colonies it was cus- 
tomary for the Board to secure the recommendations of 
the Bishop of London/ altho his advice was not always 
followed.^ 

The second force behind the growth of the colonial 
church in the provincial period was an organization whose 
origin was due to the interest in the formation of religious 
societies conspicuous in England at the close of the seven- 
teenth century. The connecting link between the Bishop 
of London and the religious societies appears in the person 
of Thomas Bray, bishop's commissary in Maryland, who 
was instrumental in the founding of the Society for Pro- 
moting Christian Knowledge and in the organization of 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts. Indications of the later work of the S. P. G. appear 
in the original constitution of the S. P. C. K. At home 
this society was to promote religious and secular education 
through the establishment of libraries and schools ; abroad 
it was to assist the bishop's missionaries in those colonies 
where no financial provision was made for them, pension 
ministers' families and establish libraries.*^ The S. P. G., 
in absorbing the functions abroad of the S. P. C. K., ob- 
tained a charter which did little more than repeat these 
duties with modifications. There had appeared however, 
particularly in the work of George Keith for the S. P. C. 
K., a secondary object toward which the earlier society 
moved and in which it was followed by its successor. In 
the Quaker of the last decade of the seventeenth century 
the English Churchman saw not one of an irritating but 
harmless dissenting sect, but the member of a great organi- 
zation, non-Christian in its teaching, eccentric in its cus- 

*Dickerson, Am. Col. Gov., 123-127. 

^The Massachusetts act of 1702 for the settlement and support of 
ministers was opposed by Compton before the Board of Trade, but his 
recommendations did not result in its disallowance. Mass. Prov. Laws, I, 
509. 

^"A General Plan of the Constitution of a Protestant Congregation 
or Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge." Allen and McClure, 200 
years of the S. P. C. K., 22. 



605] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 151 

tomsJ The strongest opposition to its supremacy which 
the Church of Enghind met in the early eighteenth century 
came from the Quaker meetings of England and America. 
In the attack upon them the Quakers saw not only reli- 
gious intolerance but political injustice as well, for the 
Anglican was the church of the state, and the Quakers, 
even more conspicuously than the other English dissent- 
ers, were hemmed in by political disabilities. In the colo- 
nies the struggle resolved itself into a duel in which the two 
sides were not unevenly matched. Backed by the two 
parent bodies at home, the London Yearly Meeting and the 
English Church, the latter working through the Bishop of 
London and the S. P. G., the contending parties fought out 
the battle. In Pennsylvania, where Quakerism had its 
stronghold, the Anglican was less successful ; in Maryland 
where Bray's chief work was done, opposition set up by 
the Quakers to the establishment of the English Church, 
was in time defeated and the act of religion passed and 
allowed. 

As the situation was in each colony modified by con- 
ditions resulting from the nature of the colony's early 
settlement, in New England three varying types of the 
struggle appeared. In Connecticut the Quaker-Anglican 
conflict was practically non-existent, for unorthodox reli- 
gious ideas found little encouragement within its borders. 
The Church of England, when finally introduced, came 
among people who were already Anglicans and later prose- 
lytized from the Congregational churches of the colony. 
In Rhode Island the Church found itself facing a number 
of different religious groups, united in their opposition to 

''"'To reduce the Quakers, who are so numerous in those parts, to the 
Christian Faith, from which they are totally Apostatiz'd, and so may be 
look'd upon as a Heathen Nation, it were to be wisli'd that a support 
could be provided for some Missionaries to be sent amongst them, in 
order to convert them, in the manner that George Keith does travail 
amongst them here in England to that blessed end, and not without good 
success." "Memorial given in by Dr. Bray." Allen and McClure, 200 
years of the S. P. C. K., 23; John Chamberlayne to Elias Neau, Oct., 1700, 
ibid., 227. 



152 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [606 

an ecclesiastical system when joined to the state, but 
differing much among themselves. Of these the Quakers 
were the largest and most influential body and the only 
one having a strong support in England. Among these 
people there was a large number who claimed no particu- 
lar religious affiliation. In Massachusetts existed a condi- 
tion midway between these two. As in Connecticut the 
Congregational church stood firmly supported by legisla- 
tion which protected it as the favored system. In addition 
to it, however, there were in the province, as the previous 
chapters have shown, so many communities of Quakers or 
of people with other unorthodox religious ideas, that they 
had, from the beginning of the provincial government, 
formed a serious problem in the enforcement of Massachu- 
setts ecclesiastical law. For a decade the most important 
work done by the S. P. G. in Massachusetts was among 
these people. 

The situation in New England was understood by 
Thomas Bray who distinguished carefully between Khode 
Island and the two larger colonies. To the former he 
would have missionaries immediately sent to deal with 
atheism; with the dissent of Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut he had no wish to interfere.^ In two of its other pur- 
poses the S. P. G. in its early years gave evidence not only 
of an unwillingness to clash with New England noncon- 
formity but even of an eagerness to act in conjunction 

8"In ROAD-ISLAND, for want of a Clergy, many of the Inhabitants 
are said to be sunk downright into Atheism. The New Generation, being 
the Off-spring of Quakers, whose children, for want of an Outward 
Teaching, which those Enthusiasts at first denied, being meer Ranters; 
as indeed the Sons of Quakers are found to be such in most Places, and 

equally to deny all Religion Nor do I think myself oblig'd to 

speak here of New-England, where Independency seems to be the Religion 
of the Country. My design is not to intermeddle, where Christianity 
under any Form has obtained Possession ; but to represent rather the 
deplorable State of the English Colonies, where they have been in a man- 
ner abandoned to Atheism; or, which is much at one, to Quakerism, for 
want of a Clergy settled among them." Bray, A Memorial representing 
the Present State of Religion on the continent of North America, London 
1700. Printed in Steiner, Bray, 159 et seq. 



607] THE CHURCH OF ENGLxVND 153 

with it. When in 1704 the secretary was communicating 
with the Board of Trade in regard to work among the 
Indians, he was informed of the existence of the old So- 
ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England 
and urged to discover how its funds were employed. A 
later letter from Sir William Ashurst to the secretary 
described most cordially the work of this organization.^ 
At about the same time an account came to the S. P. G. of 
an organization in New England known as the Society for 
the Propagation of Religion, founded on the pattern of 
the corresponding societies existing in London. The S. P. 
G. exchanged publications with this society. ^° 

The principle laid down by Bray was carried out in 
the work of George Keith and John Talbot, its first mis- 
sionaries. George Keith especially, having himself passed 
from Quakerism to Keithian Quakerism and thence to the 
Church of England, made his great work to lead his former 
friends from their "errors." With this in view Keith and 
Talbot went early to Ehode Island, the center of New 
England Quakerism." There they found one Anglican 
church already in existence, as Newport had been favored 
by Bray three years before the founding of the Venerable 
Society. Its first two ministers, both sent out by Comp- 
os". P. G. Letters, A I, No. 26; A II, No. 148. See also references to 
this society in 5". P. G. Journal, II, 259-266, 16 Jan. and 13 Feb., 1712/13. 

lORdward Bromfield to Thomas Bromfield, 9 Oct., 1704, 5". P. G. Let- 
ters, A II, No. 29; Edward Bromfield to the Sec'y, 24 Feb., 1707, ibid., 
A III, No. 178. In later years the cordialit/ between the S. P. G. and 
this organization in New England disappeared as the leaders of the latter 
society became interested in placing Congregational ministers in "unor- 
thodox" towns. In some of these the S. P. G. was already at work. 

"The religious situation in Rhode Island at this time is described in 
a memorial sent by Honeyman to Nicholson. It is called a "Melancholy 
Scene," the people divided into many sects and presenting "a dismal view 
of the Triumph of the Empire of darkness over the Kingdom of Our 
Lord Jesus." Among these are i. Quakers, 2. Anabaptists divided between 
those observing the first and those the seventh day of the week, 3. Gor- 
tonians, 4. those li\-ing with no religion at all, 5. Independents and a few 
members of the 6. Church of England. S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 176. 



154 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [608 

ton/^ were followed in 1704 by the Rev. James Honeyman 
who had crossed originally to be in the Narragansett 
country.^" Many letters were written in the early days 
of the Society, urging that a missionary be sent to the west 
shore of Narragansett Bay,^^ but the place was not sup- 
plied until 1717.^^ In 1723 the little church in Providence 
received a minister.^^ 

In Massachusetts Keith and Talbot visited chiefly the 
towns which most closely resembled Rhode Island, on Cape 
Ann and in the boundaries of the old Plymouth Colony. 
It was not, however, in the strongly Quaker community of 
Dartmouth or in the part-Quaker, part-CongTegational 
towns of Salem and Lynn, Sandwich and Falmouth, that 
they met their warmest welcome. Instead of this it was 
in that group of Rhode Island border settlements which 
had given the Bristol justices their greatest problem in 
administration, through an indifference to religious teach- 
ing and a strong determination to have political and per- 
sonal liberty, that these men were most kindly received. 
Around a nucleus of sincere Churchmen gathered a group 
of independent or negative thinkers, more than ready to 
meet Massachusetts ecclesiasticism wdth any stronger 
weapon.^" Such w^as the condition in Freetown, Tiverton, 

i-Bray to the Sec'y, 24 May, 1704, 5". P. G. Letters, A I, No. 164; 
Church at Newport to the Sec'y, 29 Sept., 1702, ibid., A I, No. 54; J. 
Brenton to the Sec'y, i5 Nov., 1710, ibid., A VI, No. 6. 

I'^Pascoe, 300 Years of the S. P. G., 42; J. Brenton to the Sec'y, 15 
Nov., 1710, S. P. G. Letters, A VI, No. 6. 

^*5'. P. G. Journal, I, 29, 27 Feb., 1701/02; S. Myles to Bp. of Glouc, 
8 July, 1702, 5". P. G. Letters, A I, No. 32; Bp. of London to the Sec'y, 
ibid., A I, No. 35. 

i^Guy to the Sec'y, 10 June, 1717, 5". P. G. Letters, A XII, 447-448; 
Shute to the Sec'y, 14 June, 1717, ibid., A XII, 449. 

i^Humphreys, Hist. Acc't of the S. P. G., 323; Johnson's Rep., 18 
Jan., 1722/23; 5". P. G. Letters, A XVI, 42-44 et alia; Sec'y to Ch. at 
Prov., 20 July, 1723, ibid., A XVII, 394-395; Sec'y to Pigot, 20 July, 1723, 
ibid., A XVII, 397; Pigot to the Sec'y, 13 Jan., 1723/24, ibid., A XVII, 
362-365. 

^^"Their good will to ye Church se'ms mostly to [be] from their 
aversion to Independency & so secure themselves agt ye penal Laws of ye 



609] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 155 

and Little Compton and less conspicuously in Swansea.^® 
Swansea and Little Compton decided for Church of Eng- 
land ministers at an early date,^^ and the group in Swan- 
sea under the leadership of one John Brown persisted for 
several years. Samuel Myles, who was especially fond of 
this little church, often preached at Swansea, lent books 
to the people and repeatedly wrote to England in their 
behalf,^*^ but the attempt made by the Society to procure 
a minister for the town was unsuccessful.-^ 

The work of John Brown for the Church of England 
ministry in Swansea was paralleled by that of Col. Vesey 
in Braintree, a town which lay outside the lines of the non- 
Congregational influence and would probably not have 
been affected by the S. P. G. work but for him. George 
Keith's report submitted to the society in 1702 stated that 
the only churches in New England were the one at Boston, 
the newly founded church at Newport, "and another in 
Braintry which has no Minister."^- As early as 1689 there 
is evidence of Churchmen in Braintree;^^ and in 1702 nu- 

province of ye Massachusets Bay wch exacts a maintenance for ye Dis- 
sentg (or the Established Clergy as they call them) not only from 
dissenters of all Denominations, but from ye profess'd & actual members 
of ye Church of Engld & that too where they have a Minr of their own 
to help to Support." McSparran to the Sec'y, 7 Jan. 1723/24 S. P. G. 
Letters, A XVII, 359-362. Also Bridger to Lucas, 7 Oct., 1718, ibid., 
A XIII, 521-523; Pigot to the Sec'y, 13 Jan., 1713/14, ibid., A XVII, 362- 

365. 

^^Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xxvi ; Bp. of London to the Sec'y, 
19 Feb., 1702/3, 5. P. G. Letters, A I, No. 53. 

^^Keith's Journal, 22, 23, 27 and 30 Aug., 1702; Prot. Episc. Hist. 
Soc. Colls., I, XV ; Samuel Myles to the Bp. of Glouc, 8 July, 1702, S. P. G. 
Letters, A I, No. 32; Bp. of London to the Sec'y, ibid., A I, No. 35; 
Keith to the Sec'y, 29 Nov., 1702, ibid., A I, No. 50. 

20Myles to Bp. of Glouc, 8 July, 1702, S. P. G. Letters, A I, No. 32; 
John Brown to Archbp. of Canterbury, 23 Feb., 1703/04, ibid., A 1, No. 
158; Myles to Dr. Beveridge, 26 Feb., 1703/04, ibid., A I, No. 160; Myles to 
the Sec'y, 15 Aug., 1707, ibid., A III, No. 123; Myles to the Sec'y, 16 Dec, 
1708, Perry, Cli. Docs., Mass., 83. 

215". P. G. Journal, I, 150, 156, 16 June, 1704. 

^^Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xv. 

23Adams, Hist, of Quincy, 37. 



156 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [610 

merous applications were made in their belialf.^^ The 
Society responded in the following year by sending Wil- 
liam Barclay to the town, but his stay was brief.^^ As a 
matter of fact, the inevitable hostility between the stand- 
ing order and the Churchmen had been increasing and at 
this time broke out in the prolonged warfare which the 
town waged over the questions of increasing the minister's 
salary and forming a second precinct.^*' In this struggle 
the standing order resorted to any means to deride the 
Churchmen, while the small Episcopal group was not 
above allying with itself the disaffected of the commu- 
nity.=^^ 

From the time of Barclay's departure the affairs of 
Braintree were considered by the Society in connection 
with the other towns of southeastern Massachusetts, and 
about them all Henry Compton was very doubtful.^^ Tho 
Myles, who as late as 1708 Avas writing in their behalf, 
finally reached the conclusion that the number of sincere 
Churchmen was too small to warrant sending a mission- 
^j,y 29 appeals from the various towns continued.^*^ The 
inhabitants of Freetown went so far as to vote in town 

-*C. Bridge to G. Keith, 19 Nov. 1702, 5". P. G. Letters, A. I, No. 49; 
Myles to Bp. of Glouc, 8 July, 1702, ibid., A I, No. 32; Lewis Morris to 
Archdeacon Beveridge, 27 July, 1702, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 72-73', Bp. 
of London to the Sec'y, I9 Feb., 1702/03, 5. P. G. Letters, A I, No. 53. 

25Talbot to the Sec'y, 7 April, 1704, Proi. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, 
xlii ; Bp. of London to the Com., 13 May, 1704, 5", P. G. Letters, A I, No. 
156. 

26Adams, Hist, of Quincy, 29-33, 42; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, 

I, 147- 

27Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 84-85. The belief of the Episcopal party 
was that the attempt made to divide the town had as its purpose the pre- 
vention of a Church of England minister's coming to the place. Perry, 
Ch. Docs., Mass., 91-93, 95; Pres. Leverett to the Sec'y, i Nov., 1711, 
S. P. G. Letters, A VI, No. 156. 

28Bp. of London to Myles, 14 Feb., 1705, Fulham Mss., R. I. 

29Myles to the Sec'y, 16 Dec, 1708, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 83; 
Colman to White Kennett, Nov., 1712; Turell, Colman, 124; Pres. Leverett 
to the Sec'y, i Nov., 171 1, 5". P. G. Letters, A VI, No. 156. 

soHoneyman to the Sec'y, 27 Oct., 1709, S. P. G. Letters, A V, No. 54; 
Honeyman to the Sec'y, 6 Nov., 1710, ibid., A VI, No. 7. 



611] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 157 

meeting in 1707 to apply to the Bishop of London for a 
missionary, arguing that by this means they could free 
themselves from presentment for lack of a minister.^^ 
Upon this principle the town pleaded when presented in 
1708;^- but the Court of General Sessions failed to view 
the matter in the same light, and, upon a petition from 
the selectmen, who were not in favor of the movement, 
appointed a minister for the town.^^ 

The Venerable Society in the meantime was having 
difficulty in procuring ministers for independent villages 
of the type of Freetown and Tiverton. James Honeyman 
of Newport, who in 1709 began to hold week day lectures 
regularly in the towns on the eastern shore of the bay, 
reported that the people were "very ignorant and rude in 
religious matters, . . . yet very grave and attentive at 
Divine worship."^^ Of this same parish William Guy 
wrote a few years later that the "generality of the people 
(as I am well informed) are almost (in all these places) 
as ignorant as the very Heathens."^^ As the numerous 
attempts which the Society made to supply this region 
met with little success, Honeyman continued this work for 
many years, preaching usually at Tiverton but also at 
Freetown and Little Compton.^*' 

When in 1712 Thomas Eager was sent by the Society 
to Braintree, he was ordered to preach likewise at Swansea 
and Little Compton; but distance as foreseen made the 
task difficult and Eager's speedy departure ended the 
scheme.^" The church now^ declined rapidly and no suc- 

^'^Bristol Sessions, II, 131, 132. 

^-Ibid., II, 136, 140, 141. 

s^Ibid., II, 214. 

34Humphreys, Hist. Acc't of the S. P. G., 62; "Memorial concerning 
Braintree," 9 Dec, 1713, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 95. 

3= Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 129. 

ssHoneyman to the Sec'y, 12 July, 1711, S. P. G. Letters, A VI, No. 
106; Honeyman to Nicholson, 3 Dec, 1714, ibid., A X, 278-279; Honeyman 
to the Sec'y, 4 Jan., 1714/15, ibid., A X, 279; Honeyman to the Sec'y, 16 
Sept., 1715, ibid., A XI, 381-382. 

3'Dudley to the Bp. of London, 19 Dec, 1712, 5". P. G. Papers, B I, 
No. 127; ibid., B I, No. 164. 



158 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [612 

cessful attempt was made to revive it for many years. ^* 
It was at this time that the case was taken up by Sir 
Francis Nicholson, one of the most aggressive of the royal 
governors, who held appointments at various times in Vir- 
ginia, New York and South Carolina. As an ardent 
Churchman he took special interest in the situation, and 
recommended a lay reader for Braintree and two itiner- 
ants for the whole group of country villages.^^ But 
neither suggestion was accepted and Honeyman continued 
his work on the mainland, using Tiverton, the most cen- 
trally located, as his chief place of labor ,^** and establishing 
there a regular lecture in a meeting house formerly built 
for a Congregational minister but unused at the time.^^ 
In 1716 Honeyman was ordered to withdraw his services 
from the eastern shore^^ as it was included in the parish 
of William Guy, sent by the Society to oflflciate at Narra- 
gansett, Tiverton, Freetown and Little Compton;^^ but at 
Guy's sudden departure, he again resumed his former 
labors."*^ In 1721, when some of the inhabitants of the 
growing town of Bristol made application to the Society 
for a Church of England minister, giving promises to build 
a church, the Episcopalians of the neighboring Freetown, 
Tiverton, Swansea, and Little Compton were included.^^ 
Although James Orem, who arrived in the following year, 

385. p. G. Papers, B' I, No. 164; Braintree to Nicholson, 11 Dec, 
1713; ihid., B I, No. i68; Sir Chas. Hobby to the Sec'y, n Dec, 1713; 
5". P. G. Letters, A VIII, 529-530. 

39Nicholson to the Sec'y, i Dec, 1713, S. P. G. Letters, A VIII, 526- 
527; same to same, 11 May, 1714, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 178. 

^oS". P. G. Journal, II, 369, 30 Mar., 1714. 

^iRoneyman to the Sec'y, 3 Oct., 1715, S. P.. G. Letters, A XI, 383. 

*-Sec'y to Honeyman, 23 Apr., [1716], S. P. G. Letters, A XI, 417. 

*3Shute to the Sec'y, 14 June, 1717, ibid., A XII, 449. 

**Honeyman to the Sec'y, 26 Aug., 1718, ibid., A XIII, 519-520 et alia; 
Honeyman to the Sec'y, 18 Oct., 1718, ibid., A XIII, 530-532 et alia. 

^^McSparran to the Sec'y, 24 May, \y2\,ibid.,A XV, 127-129; McSpar- 
ran to Nicholson, 26 May, 1721, ibid., A XV, 131 ; Bristol to the Society, 
30 May, 1721, ibid., A XV, 132-133; Bristol to the Society, 8 Dec, 1721, 
ihid., A XV, 152-153; Honeyman to the Sec'y, 15 Mar., 1721/22, ibid., 
A XVI, 273-275; et alia. 



613] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 159 

stayed only a few months/^ the church began at this time 
a permanent existence, and was for many years the only 
Anglican society in southeastern Massachusetts. With 
the establishment of the church at Providence the Episco- 
palians at Attleboro and Barrington, Swansea and Reho- 
both became associated with this group, but the Bristol 
church remained the center for Freetown, Tiverton and 
Little Compton,^'^ and Honeyman continued his week-day 
lecture among them.^* 

In addition to the towns already mentioned there 
were several others in the region south of Boston which 
by 1735 numbered some Anglicans among their inhabit- 
ants. Until separate churches were founded these scat- 
tered people were included in the parish of Christ Church, 
Boston, and Timothy Cutler often travelled into the coun- 
try to hold special services. When in 1725 he went to 
Braintree to administer the sacrament, he found the people 
collecting money to build a small church and anxious to 
revive the society which had died out a dozen years 
before.^ ^ In 1727 the Society responded to their applica- 
tion for a minister^" and sent over Ebenezer Miller who 
served the church at Braintree for thirty-four years.^^ The 

■*''Bristol to the Society, 4 June, 1722, S. P. G. Letters, A XVI, 275-276; 
Orem to the Sec'y, 4 July, 1722, ibid., A XVI, 292-296; Orem to the Sec'y, 
30 Oct. 1722, ibid., A XVI, 314-315; James McSparran of Narragansett 
who helped supply the Bristol parish at Orem's departure wrote, "the 3 
Towns now menconed [Freetown, Tiverton and Little Compton] have 
each of them a few (& but a few people that incline to ye Ch : of Engd 
but have hitherto made no advances towds having the Worship of God 
accordg to yt way setled among them. Save that ye building of Bristol 
Church." McSparran to the Sec'y, i May, 1723, ibid., A XVII, 342-345- 

■*'^Usher to the Sec'y, 27 Dec, 1726, ibid., A XIX, 459-460; Pigot to 
the Sec'y, 11 Sept., 1727, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 223. 

*sHoneyman to the Sec'y, 10 April, 1728, S. P. G. Letters, A XXI, 
403-404; Honeyman to the Sec'y, 6 July, 1731, ibid., A XXIII, 251-252; 
Honeyman to the Sec'y, 27 Nov., 1734, ibid., A XXV, 159. 

^^Checkley to Thos. Bennet, 15 June, 1725, Slafter, Checkley, II, 174- 
175 ; Cutler to the Sec'y, 23 Sept., 1725, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 184-185. 

^"Braintree to Nicholson, 28 Dec, 1726, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 208- 
209. 

^ipoote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 259. 



160 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [614 

first service held in Scituate was also in 1725, and during 
the next few years Cutler and Miller supplied the town.^^ 
A church was built in 1732^^ which accommodated the 
neighboring towns of Pembroke and Hanover,^ ^ Marshfleld 
and Halifax,^-^ and a minister arrived in the following 
year.^*' Soon after this Cutler reported preaching at Ded- 
ham and also at Mendon, the partly Quaker town north 
of Providence,'^" while the ministers of Braintree and 
Scituate alternated in officiating at Bridgewater.^^ 

Success in the founding of a church in Bristol several 
years before any other town south of Boston boasted a 
permanent organization is explicable. Tho in the be- 
ginning its establishment seems to be due to the anti-Con- 
gregational feeling in the region for which it was county 
seat, the later history of the church there shows that it 
was largely economic causes that assured its success. 
Bristol was a growing commercial town sharing with 
Providence and Newport the trade of Narragansett Bay. 
Because of this commerce there was a constant arrival 
from across the sea of English strangers, many of them 
Anglican in sympathy .^^ 

To this same cause may be traced the early demand 
for an Episcopal Church in Marblehead, the chief commer- 
cial town of northern Massachusetts. John Talbot, preach- 
ing at Marblehead in 1707, found the people "terribly 
pleased (as their phrase is)" and ready to subscribe to- 
ward building a church.*'*^ In 1714 they petitioned the 

52Miller to the Sec'y, 25 May, 1729, S. P. G. Letters, A XXII, 163-164; 
same to same, 5 Oct., 1732, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 289-290; Cutler to the 
Sec'y, 29 Nov., 1732, 5". P. G. Letters, A XXIV, 97-98; S. P. G. Abstract, 
1728-1729, 47. 

53Miller to the Sec'y, 5 Dec, 1732, S. P. G. Letters, A XXIV, 154, 

^*Petition from people of Scituate, 30 Nov., 1732, ibid., A XXIV, 160- 
161. 

^^Davenport to the Sec'y, 10 Nov., 1735, ibid., A XXV, 324-328. 

^^Davenport to the Sec'y, 3 Nov., 1733, ibid., A XXIV, 431. 

^■^Cutler to the Sec'y, 9 Nov., 1734, ibid., A XXV, 154-155. 

•"'SMiller to the Sec'y, 26 Dec, 1734, ibid., A XXV, 168. 

^^Munro, History of Bristol, R. L 

«oTalbot to the Sec'y, 13 Dec, 1707, S. P. G. Letters, A III, No. 158. 



615] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 161 

Society for a missionary,*'^ who arrived in tlie person of 
William Shaw in the following year.^- In succeeding years 
Marblehead became the center for the church service in the 
region north of Boston and had many communicants in 
the neighboring coast town of Salem which in 1734 erected 
a church of its own.^^ 

There were also by 1735 Churchmen in the towns of 
Ipswich,^ ^ Newbury, Amesbury and Salisbury, in the vi- 
cinity of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in the Maine 
towns of York, Kittery and Piscataqua.'^^ One of these, 
Newbury, was the first community in the province outside 
of Boston to organize permanently an Anglican church 
and to be supplied with a resident missionary. The move- 
ment was, however, not caused by a Church of England 
group within the town but came out of a long protracted 
struggle between two factions in the precinct Congrega- 
tional Church of West Newbury. The minority, angered 
by the actions of their opponents and a General Court 
order in favor of the latter, were approached by John 
Bridger of Portsmouth, N. H., surveyor general of Her 
Majesty's forests, and agreed at his suggestion to proclaim 
a definite schism from their neighbors by declaring for 

siProf. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, 6i ; Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 113; 
Marblehead to the Society, S April, 1714, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 171 ; 
Marblehead to Nicholson, 5 April, 1714, ibid., B I, No. 172. In referring 
to this letter Nicholson wrote, "The town of Marblehead is . . . one of 
the most thriving in the Country, by reason of the Fishing Trade — very 
many Ships loading there with dry Cod fish for Portugall Spain and the 
Streights; If the Society would be pleased to send a good Missionary 
thither & that as soon as possible I beleive there would be a very consid- 
erable Congregation of the Church of England." 11 May, 1714, ibid., B I, 
No. 178; Myles to the Sec'y, 23 July, 1714, ibid., B I, No. 188. 

62Shaw to the Sec'y, 13 Jan. 1715/16, ibid., A XI, 385-386. 

«3Pigot to the Sec'y, 29 Apr., 1728, ibid., A XXI, 405; Pet. of Salem 
to the Society, i Aug., 1733, ibid., A XXIV, 417-418; Salem to the So- 
ciety, 30 Dec, 1734, ibid., A XXV, 171-172; Mass. Archives, XI, 413. 

64Pigot to the Sec'y, 6 Aug., 1733, 5". P. G. Letters, A XXIV, 419. 

sspiant to the Sec'y, 24 Sept., 1732, ibid., A XXIV, 139-140; Pigot to 
the Sec'y, 29 Oct., 1733, ibid., A XXIV, 426; Plant to the Sec'y, 6 Dec, 
1734, ibid., A XXV, 162. 



162 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [616 

the Church of England.'^** Bridger assured the people that 
if they would petition for a Church of England minister, 
they Avould be freed from contributing to the precinct 
church, while a missionary would come supplied with a 
salary by the Society. This argument was of importance 
in effecting the results, but later events proved that a 
misunderstanding had occurred,*^" 

John Lambton, a chaplain of the Queen's navy, offi- 
ciated in Newbury for a short time in 1713-1714, and was 
succeeded by Henry Lucas, an eccentric man, who painted 
a picture of his unusual parish in dark colors. According 
to Lucas the first steps Avere taken to frighten the precinct, 
never with the thought that the Honorable Society would 
actually grant the petition and send a minister.^* While 
there doubtless were several sincere Churclimen among the 
apostates of Newbury, the group as a whole was, according 
to Benjamin Colman, simply a typical country church 
faction, possessing, in the matter of church practices, 
those very prejudices which made them look with horror 
upon such tendencies as the Brattle Street church repre- 
sented, and as far from Episcopacy as could well be 
imagined.''^ 

^^Coffin, Hist, of Newbury, 151 et seq.; Currier, Ould Newbury, 
363-395 ; Currier, History of Netvbury, Mass., 332-357 ; 369-374 ; "Mem. of 
John Bridger," 4 Dec, 171 1, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 99; Pet. of Newbury 
to the B'p. of London, 5. P. G. Letters, A VII, 93 ; Bp. of London to the 
Sec'y, 4 Feb., 1712/13, ibid., A VII, 45; et alia. 

^"■"Mem. of John Bridger," 4 Dec, 171 1, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 99; 
Bridger to Lord Dartmouth, 2 Feb., 1711/12, ibid., 102; Lucas to the Sec'y, 
19 June, 1720, ibid., 132; "But they chuse the Church because they would 
save their Rates to the other Ministers is very plaine to me." Bridger to 
Lucas, 7 Oct., 1718, 5". P. G. Letters, A XIII, 521-523. 

®*Lucas to the Sec'y, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 127. 

^^Colman stated that while Belcher of the West Precinct of Newbury 
was a man of unusually catholic principles, the people of Queen Anne's 
Chapel were "till now among the most narrow and rigid Dissenters, who 
would before this have disowned me in particular, for the Use of the 
Lord's Prayer, reading the Scriptures and a freer Admission to the 
Lord's Table, than has been generally practiced in these Churches." Col- 
man to White Kennett, Nov., 1712, Turell, Colman, 124. 



617] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 163 

From this review of the work of the S. P. G. in rural 
Massachusetts it will appear that in its beginning and 
during the first ten years of the Society's history it was 
little more than the local application of the great Anglican- 
Quaker struggle going on in all the colonies. By the end 
of that time the Church had found a foothold and other 
causes accounted for its growth. These were principally 
two, — the increase of the over-sea element in the commer- 
cial towns of the province, and the subsequent proselytiz- 
ing from the churches of the standing order. A town 
quarrel was the basis of the introduction of the Anglican 
service at Newbury, and in various other communities local 
disagreements helped to feed the missionary establishment 
of the Church of England. 

Coincident with this second phase of the Church's 
development in the province, came a new alignment of 
parties. The Massachusetts Congregationalist had come 
to see in the Anglican minister not a missionary to "Qua- 
ker and irreligious'' towns or to the Indian natives, but 
rather the representative of an organization and practice 
which the Puritan of two generations before had come into 
the wilderness to escape, and which in spreading would 
exert a political as well as a religious influence which 
might prove hostile to the system of the land. Succeeding 
years therefore witnessed the conflict between the ecclesi- 
astical laws of Massachusetts and the demands of the 
Anglican churches throughout the province. 

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had 
scarcely begun its work when it discovered the difficulty 
which it had to meet in Massachusetts where a state church 
was supported by public taxation."^*^ As early as 1703 the 
Churchmen in Braintree appealed to Joseph Dudley, ask- 
ing that the governor and council would order that their 
estates need not be taxed for ministerial support until a 
legal trial be held or Her Majesty's pleasure be known. '^^ 

^<>"Account of the State of the Church in North America by Mr. 
George Keith and others." Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xv. 

■'iDocuments relating to the case are in the Public Record Office. 
C. O., 5, 863. 



164 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [618 

Not receiving satisfaction at that time they were in 1710 
complaining to the Bishop of London that they were 
termed Papists and Idolaters and their worship called the 
"mass," while their estates were forcibly taken from them 
*'by those whose wills are the measure of their actions, for 
the support of Dissenting ministers."^^ 

It is not without some significance that it was the 
church at Newbury which was the first to go systematically 
to work, and not altogether ineffectively, to gain exemp- 
tion. Disgust at ministerial assessments, levied upon them 
after they supposed they would be immune, was united to 
a certain resentment long felt against their fellow towns- 
men. The attempt made early in 1712 to collect from them 
a ministerial tax, voted before the schism, was the cause 
of an appeal which they made to Dudley. The petition 
stated that it was "a thing unknown in her Majesty's 
dominions that the members of the Church of England 
should be forced to contribute to the support of the toler- 
ated dissenting Teachers.""^ 

Dudley's relation to religious and ecclesiastical con- 
cerns within his province was a curious one. Born in 
Massachusetts, of an old family of the standing order, he 
was trained in all the customs of his native land and was 
a member of the church in Roxbury. But while governor 
of the Isle of Wight he became a communicant of the 
Church of England; in 1701 he was made correspondent 
of the S. P. C. K. for that province,^* and later a member 
of the S. P. G.,^^ becoming a strong supporter of its 
work.'^^ Returning to New England he soon found that he 
had incurred the hatred of his own circle, but was at the 
same time never able to gain the full confidence of Massa- 
chusetts Churchmen. "^^ This result came as an inevitable 

^-Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 84-85. 
'^^Ibid., 99-108; Sewall's Diary, 2y Feb., 1711/12. 

^*"Minutes of the S. P. C. K.", McCIure, Eng. Ch. Hist., 140, 299, 306. 
"^^S. P. G. Journal, I, 37, 43. 

''■^Keith to the Sec'y, S. P. G. Letters, A I, No. 9 ; Dudley to the Sec'y, 
10 Oct., 1706, ibid.. A III, No. 4; S. P. G. Journal, 18 Jan., 1711/12, II, 153. 
'■''Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, 147, 175. 



619] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 165 

consequence of his application in ecclesiastical affairs of 
his theories as a representative of the British imperial 
system. His affiliation with the Anglican Church was a 
practical expression of his advocacy of the enforcement of 
English law. In his dealings with the religious parties in 
New England he w^as above all eager to suppress petty 
jealousies, to placate the various parties, and by the ar- 
rangement of compromises to allay the strife of religious 
factions as he succeeded to a certain extent with political 
ones. It was with this object in view that he had given 
an impression of friendliness to the Quakers, John Tucker, 
Eichard Borden, Joseph Wanton and Ebenezer Slocum, 
while doing little for them. The same principle he applied 
in dealing with the Anglicans.'^^ Knowing that the matter 
presented by the representatives of the church at Newbury 
was outside of his authority, he was, however, anxious to 
remedy the situation. The result of his consideration was 
embodied in a communication to the justices of Essex 
County, dated 28 Feb., 1711/12. After reciting the situa- 
tion presented in the Newbury petition, Dudley concluded : 

I am therefore of opinion that the said Petitioners and others that join 
with them ought to be peaceably allowed in their lawful proceedings 
therein for their good establishment and ought not to be taxed or im- 
posed upon for the support and maintenance of any other public worship 
in the said Town of wch I desire all persons concerned to take notice 
accordingly.''^ 

This was no order but a mere recommendation, tho the 
Honorable Society always thought otherwise and was led 
by Dudley so to believe.^^ This encouragement prompted 
the Churchmen of Newbury to go on with their church 
building and continue resistance to taxation ; but the other 

■^^In a letter to the Bishop of London, dated i Aug., 1705, Dudley 
justifies the legislation of 1702 and his own attitude. "I freely told the 
Council when the additional Law was made that it must not be supposed 
to refer to the Church of England but to such persons profane & irre- 
ligious as the preface mentions." Fulhain Mss., Mass. 

'^Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 108. 

^'•Dudley to the Bp. of London, 19 Dec, 1712, S. P. G. Papers, B L 
No. 127; Dudley to the Sec'y, 1 May, 1714, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 97; 
Pascoe, Digest of the S. P. G., 43. 



166 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [620 

townsmen were no less determined upon success. Impris- 
onment followed, from which in the first instance Dudley 
issued a discharge.^ ^ A later suit resulted in an appeal to 
the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, which upon a techni- 
cality reversed the judgment previously submitted by the 
justices of Essex County.*^- This result was in large part 
due to Sir Francis Nicholson to whom the Newbury 
Churchmen had applied for aid, as the chief patron of the 
Church in the colonies.^^ Nicholson employed counsel 
from his own fortune and went to work with the double 
purpose of freeing the prisoners and discovering whether 
there was real authority for their imprisonment. He 
w^ould doubtless have made a strong appeal to the home 
government had he found any illegality in the latter, but 
in this he was disappointed. He did, however, write to 
the Society^^ while Bridger applied to Dudley. Whatever 
the governor may have done at this time the w^est precinct 
of Newbury registered its understanding of the recent turn 
events had taken by voting, 2 April, 1714, "to free all those 
persons that are or shall be for the Episcopal way of 
worship in ye Precinct from paying any rates to the main- 
tenance of ye Ministry amongst us.''^^ Tho an attempt 
was later made to revive the tax, matters were for the time 
being quiet. 

siDudley to the Bp. of London, 19 Dec, 1712, 5". P. G. Papers, B I. 
No. 127. 

*-Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 109. 

^^Prot. Episc. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, xxiii, xxv, xxxiii; S. P. G. Sermon 
and proceedings, 1712-1713, 42; Lambton to Nicholson, i Jan., 1713/14, 
27 Jan., 1713/14, 3 Feb., 1713/14, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 87, 88, 89. There 
is also a petition from Newbury to the Queen preserved in the Public 
Record Office, C. O. 5, 751. This petition was covered by Bridger with a 
letter to the secretary of the Board of Trade, dated 7 Dec, 1713. 

**Nicholson to the Sec'y, 17 Feb., 1713/14, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 91. 

^^Quoted from the records of Newbury in Currier, Ould Newbury, 
383. In this order Quakers were also included. The account of his 
travels in America submitted by James Dickenson to the London Yearly 
Meeting of 1715 records that "at Boston they had large meetings and 
Service, and also at Newberry where friends as well as the Church 
of England People (so called) are Exempted from paying to the 
National Presbyterian Priests there." Lond. Yr. M., V, 134. 



621] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 167 

During- the course of these proceedings in Newbury 
the Churchmen of Braintree began to take similar meas- 
ures regarding their treatment at the hands of the standing 
order. Early in 1713, soon after the coming of Eager, a 
petition signed by William Vesey and others, and asking 
that they be freed from ecclesiastical charges, was pre- 
sented to the Governor and Council. '^^ It was considered 
on May 7 and then referred to the General Court on the 
ground that it lay within the authority of that body.*^ The 
petition was accordingly tendered to the General Court 
in June;^^ but the latter took advantage of a technicality 
and refused to consider it.^^ It was at this point that 
Eager sent an appeal to the Venerable Society. "We 
cannot find," said he "that any of our Communion upon 
this Northern part of this Continent are obliged to support 
the Dissenters, but this poor handful of this Town only."^*' 
Eager's letter produced a communication from the secre- 
tary to Governor Dudley. ^^ 

The Society conceive this to be a very great hardship [ran the letter] and 
apprehend it is very much in your Excellency's power to do and procure 
to be done that which is just and equal to such who are so oppressed, 
and the rather because they observe in a Letter from your Excellency to 
the late Lord Bishop of London of the igth December last, you are 
pleased to say, that as to such Inhabitants who had declared for the 
Church of England you had at their request exempted them from pay- 
ment of taxes to any other Ministers but of the Church. 9- 

Such a statement shows how Dudley had succeeded in 
giving the Bishop of London a different impression from 
what was actually the case. In his relation to the Episco- 
pal churches of the province Dudley had not gone farther 
than to make recommendations to the justices of Essex 
County, and those only in regard to the single town of 

s'^Isaac Addington to Wm. Vesey, 23 Apr., 1713, Fulham, Mss., Mass. 
^''Council Minutes, 7 May, 1713, Fulham Mss. Mass. 
88"The Case of the Church of Brantry," 2 June, 1713, ibid.: ScivalVs 
Diary, 2 June, 1713. 

^^Wm. Tailer to Wm. Vesey, 19 June, 1713, Fulham Mss., Mass. 
^''Eager to the Sec'y, 12 Aug., 1713, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 91-93 
9iSec'y to Eager, 18 Dec, 1713, S. P. G. Letters, A VIII, 588. 
^-Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 96. 



168 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [622 

Newbury.^^ The Society believed that he had issued gen- 
eral orders and upon this supposition based their appeal 
to him in the present case. Dudley must have felt some 
uneasiness at the misunderstanding for he hastened to 
write, 1 May, 1714, to explain to the secretary that what 
he had formerl^^ said referred only to Newbury. He was, 
however, not obliged to confess that this had been nothing 
but a statement of opinion. Between his two letters affairs 
at Newbury had developed, and he was now able to record 
the vote of the west precinct which exempted Anglicans 
from ministerial charges. '^^ 

The matter of Braintree was dropped soon after this 
because of the departure of Eager and the decline of the 
church. 

During the administration of Joseph Dudley the prin- 
cipal application made by the Massachusetts Churchmen 
for relief from ministerial taxes were to the governor. 
His effort to smooth matters over and give an appearance 
of authority prevented the Anglican element from carrying 
many urgent appeals to the Bishop of London or the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Had such 
appeals been made at this time and solicitations in Eng- 
land followed, it is possible that results for the provincial 
Churchmen might have been obtained which were long 
postponed by the death of the strenuous Henry Compton 
and of Queen Anne. 

Lieutenant-governor William Tailer, who acted as 
chief executive for the year between Dudley's removal and 
the appointment of Shute, had the confidence of the 
Anglican ministers in the province as well as of the So- 

s^The secretary referred to the following statement. — "Those that 
brought me, that address, carry'd Home with them Immediately an order 
under my Hand Commanding that nothing upon any pretence whatsoever 
Should be taken from any of them that Declar'd for the Church of Eng- 
land, for the Maintenance of any other Minister." Dudley to the Bp. of 
London, 19 Dec, 1712, S. P. G. Papers, B I, No. 127, 

^^Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 97. 



623] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 169 

ciety,^^ but was not called upon to settle any questions of 
church and state. 

His successor Samuel Shute, altho belonging to an 
English nonconforming family,^" became a member of the 
S. P. G.^'^ and pledged himself to support its missionaries.®* 
He had occasion to frame a very deiinite policy regarding 
the Episcopal churches of the province, and took matters 
into his own hands. With him a determination to enforce 
English law was unaccompanied, as in the case of Dudley, 
with political astuteness and an understanding of New 
England institutions, so that he was induced to stretch his 
prerogative in dealing with the Anglican churches. 

Not long after Shute's arrival the wardens and vestry 
of the church at Marblehead presented him with the 
grievances which they felt in being forced to contribute to 
the support of dissenting ministers. The governor's re- 
sponse gave temporary satisfaction. He seems to have sent 
a communication to the selectmen of the town to the effect 
that the Churchmen ought not to be taxed.®® The feeling 
of security which this support gave the church at Marble- 
head^°^ was in reality unfounded, for the selectmen of the 
town defied Shute's recommendation. The assessors pro- 
ceeded once more to rate the Churchmen for the support 
of the ministry and the constables to distrain their 

85Ministers etc, of the Ch. of Eng. in Boston to the Bp. of London, 
29 Sept., 1714, Fulham Mss., Mass.; Sec'y to Tailer, 17 Dec, 1716, 
5". P. G. Letters, A XI, 421. 

s^The appointment of Shute was a matter of satisfaction to New 
England Congregationalists until they discovered his policy. Cotton 
Mather to Lord Barrington, 4 Nov., 1718, / Mass. Hist. Colls., I, 105, 106; 
"Address to His Majesty from the Convention of the Ministers of Christ 
in New England, "30 May, 1717, C. O. 5, 752. 

8^5*. P. G. Journal, IV, 49, 15 May, 1719. 

98Shute to the Sec'y, i Jan., 1718/19, S. P. G. Letters, A XIII, 547. 

s^Marblehead to the Sec'y, 10 May, 1717, Perry, Ch. Docs. Mass., 
126-127; Shute to the Sec'y, 10 May, 1717, S. P. G. Letters, A XII, 442; 
Sec'y to Shute, 16 Dec, 1717, ibid., A XII, 473; Marblehead to the Sec'y, 
Feb., 1717/18, ibid., A XIII, 498. 

lo^Shaw to the Sec'y, 31 Mar., 1718, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 130. 



170 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [624 

goods.^*^^ Mossom, who in the meantime had succeeded 
Shaw/'^^ wrote to the secretary asking that the Society 
would communicate with Shute and secure his intercession 
for his parishioners.^*^^ Without waiting for this sugges- 
tion to take effect he applied to the governor himself in a 
petition dated June 27, 1722, with the request that His 
Excellency would be pleased "effectually to interpose" and 
require the Justices of the Peace and selectmen to exempt 
members of the church in Marblehead.^*^"* The result was 
highly satisfactory to the Anglicans as Shute assumed 
authority. He immediately addressed an order to the 
Justices of tlie Peace and the selectmen of the town of 
Marblehead requiring them to forbear laying any taxes 
upon people belonging to the English Church of the town 
toward the support of "any dissenting Minister."^ "^ 

Altho this order had no effect upon the town or county 
officials, it inspired the Churchmen of Newbury to make a 
like appeal. Disregarding its vote of April 2, 1714, the 
town had recently renewed the taxation of Churchmen. 
Just one month after issuing the order in regard to Marble- 
head, Shute wrote a similar one upon Newbury to the 
Justices of the Peace.^^^ It is probable that he repeated 
the same for Bristol at about this time.^'^'^ 

In no one of the towns which Shute favored was his 
order obeyed. At Marblehead the goods of two men were 
distrained and several others threatened, upon which Mos- 
som in December, 1722, petitioned the justices at General 
Sessions, but succeeded only in getting them to write a 

loiMossom to the Sec'y, 17 Apr., 1719, S. P. G. Letters, A XIII, 548; 
same to same. Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., I34-I3S- 

lo^Sec'y to Shute, 27 Aug., 1718, 5. P. G. Letters, A XIII, 544-545- 

io3Mossom to the Sec'y, n June, 1722, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 137. 

io*Petition printed in Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 139. 

lospgrry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 140; Mossom to the Bp. of London, 28 
Apr.. 1724, Fulham Mss., Mass.; Slafter, Checkley, I, 79, note. 

I'^^Order in full from Records of Queen Anne's Chapel, printed in 
Currier, Ould Newbury, 383. 

lO'^Plant to the Sec'y, 20 Dec, 1726, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 207; 
Slafter, Checkley, II, 2>i- 



625] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 171 

letter to the town urging the people to be at peace.^*^^ In 
Newbury the situation was similar/'^'' and in Bristol a 
number of persons were imprisoned"" for failure to pay to 
the support of the newly arrived Congregational minister, 
Nathaniel Cotton.^" 

At this point occurred the sudden departure for Eng- 
land of his Excellency Samuel Shute; and the Episcopal 
clergymen, in continuing their business with the provincial 
government, found themselves facing the lieutenant-gov- 
ernor Jeremiah Dummer. From the first Dummer an- 
nounced a policy very different from his predecessor's. 
While willing to arrange the differences in the Episcopal 
towns of the province, he recognized far better than Shute 
what was his own relation to the law. As a native New 
Englander like Dudley, he was aware that, if concessions 
were to be made, they must come from the legislative and 
not the executive body. Orem and Mossom both addressed 
Dummer soon after Shute's departure and were pleasantly 
received with the promise from the governor that he would 
use his influence in their favor.^^- He explained, however, 
and reiterated many times in the following months, when 
approached on the same subject, that the laws of the prov- 
ince absolutely supported what the selectmen and consta- 
bles were doing, so that relief must come in the way of 
legislation through the General Court. 

While Dummer was announcing these facts to the 
New England clergymen, events were occurring in Eng- 

lo^Mossom and Orem to the Bp. of London, Fulham Mss., Mass.; 
petition printed in Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 140. 

lospiant to the Sec'y, 7 Sept., 1726, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 203. 

iioUpdike, Narragansett Church, II, 469, quoting Records of St. Paul's 
Church, Narragansett ; Munro, Hist, of Bristol, 140. 

^Bristol to the Bp. of London, 8 Jan., 1721/22, 5". P. G. Letters, 
A XVI, 269-273; Bristol to the S. P. G., 29 Oct., 1722, ibid., A XVI, 
306-309. 

11-Mossom to the Bp. of London, 28 Apr., 1724, Fulham Mss., Mass. 
Orem brought to Dummer a petition from the imprisoned Churchmen of 
Bristol. Munro, Hist, of Bristol, 141, quoting New England Courant, 
II Feb., 1722/23; Updike, Narragansett Church, II, 469, quoting Records 
of St. Paul's Church, Narraganett. 



172 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [626 

land which soon exerted an important influence upon con- 
ditions in Massachusetts. In 1723 John Robinson, Bishop 
of London and diocesan of the colonies, was succeeded by 
Edmund Gibson whose ideas in regard to the supremacy 
of the English Church and the importance of ecclesiastical 
control in America resembled the theories of Henry Comp- 
ton. In Compton's time the number of Anglicans in New 
England was so small, and Dudley had been so eager to 
keep the religious elements in some degree of quiet, that 
the complaints which had reached the Bishop and the 
Society had not created any great disturbance. Under 
Shute's government the dissatisfaction with conditions had 
become more expressive; but the Society, not prodded by 
an active bishop, turned the matter over to the governor; 
and Shute, by assuming an unconstitutional authority, 
relieved the Society of further responsibility in the matter. 
The legal status of the Massachusetts Churchman was not 
appreciated by the Venerable Society in these years. 

The change came at about the time of Gibson's trans- 
lation to the see of London. He could not have been long 
in his new position when he received an elaborate commu- 
nication drawn up by Orem and Mossom soon after the 
imprisonments at Bristol, seconded by Samuel Myles and 
Henry Harris of Boston, and urging the presentation of a 
petition to the King asking for relief.^ ^^ Gibson's imme- 
diate reply was a letter to the lieutenant-governor asking 
for his protection for the clergy of the province;"^ but with 
characteristic force he went farther. Wishing to under- 
stand better ecclesiastical conditions of the colonies, Ed- 
mund Gibson at once sent out a set of queries to the various 
commissaries of his predecessor. Among them was the 
question : "What public Acts of Assembly have been made 
& confirmed, relating to the Church or Clergy within that 
Govt?" The reply made by Samuel Myles, answering for 
Massachusetts, sa:id: 

'^'^^Fulham Mss., Mass. 

ii*Cutler to Gov. and Council, 24 Apr., 1724, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 
144. 



627] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 173 

There are Several laws for the Establishing of Independants, & Settling 
Orthodox Ministers chosen by the people. The Church of England only- 
indulged, as the Anabaptists & Quakers for never in any of the Laws is 
the case supposed that the Clergy of the Chh of Engld, should be here 
Supported. 

In reply to another question he stated his belief that 

It would tend very much to the advantage of the Church, and comfort of 
the Clergy, if the members of the Chh were freed from any compulsion 
to pay to the independant ministers, as they are forced to do in many 
places Particularly in Bristol where the Church people have been impris- 
oned for not paying their rates towards the maintenance of Mr. Cotton a 
Dissenting Minister of that Town.^^^ 

Even before this information could have reached Gib- 
son, the Society was giving serious attention to an account 
from Mossom of difficulties at Marblehead and of Shute's 
order. His letter was referred to a committee 

to inspect the Laws of that Country, and to examine what has been the 
practice in other Church of England churches in New England, and also 
what has been the Usage and Practice in other Governments where the 
Church of England is the Established Church. "^ 

The result of this committee's investigation showed that 
"every person is rateable by the Governmt there to pay to 
the Minister chose by the Majority of each Town."^^^ 

This information, with the facts which the Society 
was constantly receiving from the Massachusetts clergy 
and churches, resulted in a new line of action for which 
Gibson was probably responsible. Shute, who was present 
at a number of the Society's meetings and was now aware 
of the unconstitutional position which he had previously 
taken,^ ^^ was instructed to write to the lieutenant-governor 
to use what influence he could. But it was agreed that if 

ii5Myles to the Bp. of London, i June, 1724, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 
153-154; Cross, Ang. Episc, 65-66. 

ii^i". P. G. Journal, IV, 310-31 1, 19 June, 1724. 

'^'^''Ihid., IV, 312-313, July, 1724. The authority used by the S. P. G, 
was a compilation made by Nicholas Trott of "Laws relating to the 
Church and Clergy in America," which had been submitted to the Society 
in 1720 and published upon its order. Ibid., IV, 104, 105, 8 and 29 Apr., 
1720. 

11^5". P. G. Journal, V. 70, 17 Dec, 1725 ; Sec'y to Mossom, 3 Jan., 
1725/26, S. P. G. Letters, A XIX, 270-271. 



174 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [628 

Dummer's efiforts with the General Court failed, the matter 
would be taken to the proper place, — the King in 
Council.^ ^® 

The course of these events was interrupted by another 
ecclesiastical question in which the Bishop of London had 
been much concerned. In May 1725 the ministers of Mas- 
sachusetts made their second attempt to secure govern- 
mental sanction for the holding of a synod.^^*^ A petition 
from the convention of ministers in Boston was presented 
to the General Court on May 27. Ten years earlier the 
New England Yearly Meeting had done its utmost to pre- 
vent the sanction of such a synod. Now it was the Boston 
clergymen who were on the alert before the Yearly Meeting 
had gathered. Their point of attack was similar to that 
which the Quakers had taken, — that approval in England 
of such an act would be the recognition of the Congrega- 
tional church as the established church of Massachusetts. 

The dismissal by the Representatives of a petition 
from Myles and Cutler against the ministers' memorial 
was the occasion of an appeal from Myles directly to the 
Bishop of London. Edmund Gibson in presenting the case 
to the Duke of Newcastle dwelt upon the constitutional 
phase of the question, — the legal status of the Church of 
England in the colonies.^ ^^ Beyond that were the unfor- 

^^^See the Mossom correspondence on Shute's Marblehead order, 
Sec'y to Mossom, 25 Aug., 1724, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 165; 5". P. G. 
Journal, IV, 310-31 1, 312-313, 317, 19 June, 17 July, 21 Aug., 1724; ibid., 
V, 61, 19 Nov., 1725, quoting a letter from Mossom to the Sec'y, 16 Dec, 
1724; Mossom to the Bp. of London, 7 Jan., 1725/26, Fulhain Mss., Mass. 

i-°Cross, Ang. Episc, 67-76; Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 170-190. 

i-^The two sides of the argument over what was in point of law the 
established church of Massachusetts appears in numerous writings from 
the time of the province charter. The clearest statements are by John 
Checkley and Benjamin Colman. The stand taken by the former is that 
the Church of England was extended as an established church to the 
colonies by the Act of Union. Colman's argument is that the King in 
Council by sanctioning Massachusetts ecclesiastical laws had recognized 
the Congregational as the established church of Massachusetts. Checkley 
to Z. Grey, 28 Jan., 1725/26, Slafter, Checkley, II, 221 ; Checkley to T. 
Bennett, 15 June, 1725, ihid., II, 175; Colman to White Kennett, 17 Dec, 
1725, Turell, Colman, 137. 



629] THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND 175 

tunate results which might occur in England should such 
a privilege be granted. An example must not be given 
either to the lower clergy or to the nonconformists. A 
Whig decision between nonconformists and Anglicans was 
likely to favor nonconformity rather than churchmanship ; 
but the question was presented in such a way that other 
interests were at stake. The matter was hurried through 
the necessary bodies and a judgment rendered which satis- 
fied the higher clergy. Dumnier received from the Privy 
Council a rebuke for his failure to veto the bill,^^- and the 
matter never came up again in the General Court. 

The year following Shute's letter to Dummer saw the 
arrival of fresh information from Massachusetts but no 
account of success in the legislature. Relying perhaps 
upon the outcome of the synod project, the Society in Sep- 
tember, 1726, after rereading two special communications, 
one from the clergy of New England and the other from 
Mossom, decided that a committee should be appointed to 
draw up a representation to lay before His Majesty.^^^ 
In the following month a petition framed by tliis committee 
was read before the Society "concerning the Members of 
the Church of England in Connecticut Colony and Massa- 
chusetts Bay in New England who are aggrieved in being 
forced to pay towards the Maintenance of Independent or 
Dissenting Teachers." William Sharpe was secured to act 
as counsel and the treasury of the Society was put at the 
disposal of the committee which was asked to present the 
Massachusetts and Connecticut laws to the Attorney and 
Solicitor General for their opinion whether the colonies 
by virtue of their Charters had power to make such laws 
"in prejudice of the Church of England."^-^ In conse- 
quence of the opinion rendered Sharpe was ordered to 
draw up a representation "in the name of the private Per- 
sons who have sent over complaints of their Grievances, 

i22Chas. Delafaye to the Gov. of N. E. by order of the Lords Jus- 
tices, 7 Oct., 1725, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 189. 
1235. p. Q_ Journal, V, 99, 16 Sept., 1726. 
^^^Ibid., V, loi, 21 Oct., 1726. 



176 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [630 

to be laid before his Majesty. "^^^ This petition was lodged 
in the Council office March 20, on May 13 referred to com- 
mittee, and on July 14 passed on to the Board of Trade,^-*' 
which considered it on November 10.^^^ The document in 
many respects resembled the Quaker appeal of 1723 but 
went farther. While the Quakers had been concerned with 
a disallowance of a particular law, the Anglicans asked 
for the "repeal'' of the whole mass of Massachusetts eccle- 
siastical legislation under the province charter as incon- 
sistent with the religious provisions of that document.^^^ 
On November 14 the Board of Trade, with the Bishop of 
London present, gave directions for writing to the Attor- 
ney and Solicitor General for their opinion whether the 
said acts were repugnant to the charter, and if so whether 
it was in the King's power to repeal them.^^^ The failure 
of the Board of Trade to secure any answer at this time 
must have been due in part to the political situation. The 
failure of the Bishop of London and the Society to push 
the matter farther was in a measure at least occasioned 
by the Massachusetts law of December 19, 1727. 

The solicitation of Dummer by the Venerable Society, 
falling in as it did with his own policy, was not without 
effect, tho the progress of events was slow. One of the 
chief difficulties which had developed in Massachusetts was 
the imprisonment or distraint of Anglicans in outlying 
towns who attempted to attend the church service in Bris- 
tol, or in Newport, or Providence, outside of Massachusetts 

^-^S. p. G. Journal, V, 109, 20 Jan., iy26/^. 

I-*' Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 202; Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 477; Acts of 
the Privy Council, III, 156. 

''--~Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 481. This petition is printed in full in Mass. 
Prov. Laws, II, 478-481. 

^-^As English lawyers later observed there was at this point a con- 
fusion. If the laws were repugnant to the charter no repeal in the legis- 
lature was needed but a test case carried to England, resulting in annul- 
ment. If they were not repugnant to the charter they could not be 
repealed without the consent of the General Court as they had already 
received the royal approbation. 

'^-^Mass Prov. Lazvs, II, 481-482; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 
453; Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 202. 



631] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ITT 

jurisdiction.^^*' Among tlie northern towns wliicli experi- 
enced the same trouble in less degree was Marblehead 
whose church had several members living in Salem. The 
case of Philip English was carried by petition before the 
lieutenant-governor in the winter of 1T25 and he ordered 
a speedy compromise.^^^ Altho Salem greatly resented 
this interference, a large part of the rate was remitted.^^^ 
Dummer showed on all these occasions a steady support 
of the Anglican clergy and churches/^^ but disappointed 
the clergy in his continued policy of non-interference. In 
repeated complaints to Dummer Matthias Plant of New- 
bury attempted to gain redress for a number of his parish- 
ioners living north of the Merrimac River in the town of 
Amesbury, where they were rated to the minister of that 
town. The governor received Plant cordially and went so 
far as to write to the selectmen of Amesbury, urging them 
not to molest the Churchmen, until the pleasure of the 
General Court was known; but the measure was ineffect- 
ive. ^^^ 

The efforts made by Plant were contemporaneous with 
the second founding of the church in Braintree which was 
hardly on its feet before it attempted to gain the gover- 
nor's order which the other churches in Shute's time had 
secured. Plant's final memorial and one from Braintree 
were before the Governor's Council on the same day, No- 
vember. 30, 1T26. While Dummer recognized that action 
on this question, to be valid, must come from the General 
Court, he had in mind and did propose that a law should 
immediately be made "that the taxes of those belonging 
to the Church of England be paid by the collectors to the 

isoUpdike, Narragansett Church, 477, quoting Records of St. Paul's 
'Church, Narragansett; Providence to the Sec'y, 12 May, 1725, S. P. G. 
Letters, A XIX, 228-229. 

"W. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., XXXV, 163. 

i32]VIossom to the Bp. of London, 7 Jan., 1725/26, Fulham Mss., Mass. 

i33l>ummer to the [Bp. of London], 15 Nov., 1725, ibid.; Harris and 
Mossom to the Bp. of London, 7 Dec. 1725, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 200; 
Mossom to the Bp. of London, 7 Jan., !■/ 25/26, Fulham Mss., Mass. 

i3*PIant to the Sec'y, 20 Dec, 1726, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 207. 



178 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [632 

Ministers of the Church of England to whom they severally 
do belong." A committee was appointed, Diimmer intend- 
ing that it might report some such measure to recommend 
to the lower house; but it dismissed the question, merely 
expressing its opinion that such applications should be 
made directly to the whole court. ^^^ 

Braintree attempted such application, but its memo- 
rial was thrown out by the representatives so promptly 
that Newbury declined the suggestion. Plant, to whom 
Dummer explained the case, refused to approach anyone 
but the governor on the ground that the Bishop of London 
and the Honorable Society were expecting the Church 
people to be "protected from rates only by his Honor's 
orders." To this Dummer replied that "by this time he 
believed his Lordship, the Bishop of London, and the So- 
ciety were better informed vizt, that he could not do it."^^^ 
Not long afterwards Dummer carried out his policy in 
regard to Braintree by writing a letter to Col. Quincy, who 
was then a member of the Council, asking him to use his 
influence in adjusting the Anglican difficulties in the 
town.^^'^ 

Discouraged by the events of November, 1726, both 
Newbury and Braintree gave up hope of obtaining any- 
thing from the local government and turned again to the 
Bishop of London and the Venerable Society. Plant's 
letter to the secretary was dated December 20, 1726,^^* 
and a memorial from Braintree to Nicholson eight days 
later. "We have done making Application to the Author- 
ity here," ran the Braintree statement, "and are quite 
tired, as you may see by the papers we have sent ... to 
be laid before his Lordship & the Honble Society. "^^® 

In spite of his apparent failures it was the attitude 
of Dummer which forced upon the General Court some 
action regarding the exemption of Anglicans. Letters from 

isspgrry^ C/i. Docs., Mass., 206; Dummer to Plant, 12 Dec, 1726, ibid., 
205. 

12^ Plant to the Sec'y, 20 Dec, 1726, ibid., 207. 
^•''"Dummer to Quincy, 7 Apr., 1727, Mass. Archives, XI, 419. 
^^spiant to the Sec'y, 20 Dec, 1726, Perr3% Ch. Docs., Mass., 207. 
i^^Braintree to Nicholson, 28 Dec, 1726, Fulham Mss., Mass. 



633] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 179 

the Bishop of London and from the secretary of the Society 
with the continuous stream of complaints from Bristol 
and Marblehead, Newbury and Braintree only strength- 
ened his opinion of the general wisdom of such action. 
The General Court had repeatedly thrown out applications 
from members of dissenting sects, but by 1727 conditions 
had somewhat changed. On December 5, 1727, there was 
read in the Governor's Council a proposed act which was 
little more than a repetition of the scheme which Dummer 
had outlined in a letter to Plant just twelve months before. 
Its origin in substance then may be traced to the lieuten- 
ant-governor. Its passage in the lower house was due to 
the events which had occurred in England since the assem- 
bly, a year earlier, had thrown out the Braintree memorial. 
In the spring of the year (1727) news had reached Massa- 
chusetts of the progress of the petition which Gibson and 
the Society were following from Privy Council to Board 
of Trade. ^^" The decision of the crown lawyers regarding 
the tax act of 1722, rendered three years before this, and 
of the letter sent to Dummer by the Privy Council in 
regard to sanctioning a synod, were fresh in the minds of 
the representatives. The assembly was inclined to believe 
that a partial exemption of Churchmen, scarcely more than 
many of them already had secured, was better than a dis- 
astrous decision. The Council, already inclined to favor 
Quakers, made no opposition.^^^ On December 7 the act 
was passed in the upper house, was read in the assembly, 
and finally on the twelfth concurred in with certain amend- 
ments.^^^ 

This act of December 19, 1727, which was in reality 
an act for the settlement and support of ministers, con- 
tained a clause which gave a limited exemption to Angli- 

i^oCutler to the Sec'y, 24 May, 1727, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 222; 
Dummer to the Bp. of London, 20 June, 1727, Fulham Mss., Mass. 

^*'^Pubs. of the Col. Soc. of Mass., vol. I. Transactions, 142. Jona- 
than Belcher who was a member of the Council at this time later stated 
that he did all in his power to promote it. Belcher to the Bp. of London, 
5 Oct., 1733, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 292-293. 

^*~Mass. Archives, XI, 472. 



180 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [634 

cans. Ministerial rates were to be collected from them as 
usual; but the money of those who lived within five miles 
of an Anglican church where there was a "person in orders 
according to the rules of the Church of England" should 
be turned over by the collectors to the Episcopal minister. 
The Churchmen were also exempt from paying to the build- 
ing of meeting houses. A proviso, however, limited the 
usefulness of the act. It was stated that if a deficiency 
occurred in the salary of the Congregational minister by 
reason of this arrangement, a second assessment could be 
made in which Churchmen were to be included.^^'^ 

Very general dissatisfaction was felt at so slight a 
concession. The five mile radius was particularly trying 
in the parish of the Bristol church; the probability of a 
second assessment was a cause of complaint ; the temporary 
character of the act was annoying.^^^ The people of Har- 
rington and Rehoboth who had joined with the new church 
at Providence were particularly stirred because no arrange- 
ment had been made to cover their position. ^^^ 

Gibson soon learned of the passage of the act^^^ and 
on June 21, 1728, laid it before the Society with criticism. 
The S. P. G. immediately instructed Sharpe to watch for 
the arrival of the act at the Board of Trade and inform the 
Society, that it might be followed to the Privy Council.^^'^ 
The bishop also wrote to William Burnet, the newly ap- 
pointed governor of Massachusetts; but Burnet was too 
deeply concerned with the salary question between himself 
and the assembh'^ to do anything more than send a friendly 
reply to Gibson. ^'^^ 

^*^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 459, ch. 7. 

i**Cutler to Capt. John Delapp, 13 May, 1731, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 
264-266. 

"•'^Providence to the Sec'y, 8 July, 1730, S. P. G. Letters, A XXIII, 
118-119; a petition in behalf of these people was read by the Governor's 
Council, 5 Sept., 1728, C. O. 5, 898. 

i43Checkley to the Bp. of London, 31 Mar. 1728, Perry, Ch. Docs., 
Mass., 250; Miller to the Bp. of London, 10 May, 1728, ibid., 253. 

"^5". P. G. Journal, V, 164, 21 June, 1728. 

i*^"As to the two acts about the Lords day, and exempting church 
men &c I think them both verj^ wrong, and wish they were repealed by 



635] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 181 

Since November 14, 1727, the petition whicli tlie Ven- 
erable Society had drawn up in the name of the Massachu- 
setts clergymen had lodged with the Attorney and Solicitor 
General, and was neglected for various reasons. The 
passage of the act of 1727 somewhat altered the situation 
but a new petition was not immediately framed. Sharpe 
on May 21, 1729, at last succeeded in securing an order 
from the Board that Popple should write again to the 
Attorney and Solicitor General to remind them that no 
answer had been made to the question submitted November 
14, 1727, but nothing came of this.^''^ 

Two years more passed before the English Churchmen 
were able to secure the attention which they desired. By 
that time the Massachusetts act of 1727 had arrived offi- 
cially, as well as the first Quaker and Baptist legislation 
which made better concessions than the earlier act had 
given to the Anglicans.^ ^'''^ Dissatisfaction with the act of 
1727 was expressed in a petition drawn up again in the 
name of Timothy Cutler to the King in Council which on 
October 28, 1731, was considered and referred to the Lords 
Committee.^^^ On November 1 it was passed on to the Board 
of Trade^^^ who gave it their consideration. This second 
petition reminded the Board that it had failed to return 
a report on the earlier memorial but stated that the situa- 
tion now was somewhat changed by the legislation of 1727. 
The objections to the recent act were set forth. Finally 
His Majesty was besought once more to consider the va- 
rious acts before mentioned as well as the present law, take 
action upon them and enjoin the governor not to pass any 

His Majesty I beleive it would have a good effect if they were so, and 
the objections mentioned by your Lordship against ym seem to be all well 
founded, and I wish they could be taught to know that the Independents 
here are no Established church." Burnet to the Bp. of London, 27 Nov., 
1728, Fulham Mss., Mass. 

^*^Mass. Prov. Laws, H, 482. 

is°Cutler to Capt. John Delapp, 13 May, 1731, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 
264-266. 

^^''^Acts of the Privy Council, III, 156. 

^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 482-483; Acts of the Privy Council, III, 156; 
Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 455. 



182 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [636 

act for the future "whereby any Tax shall be laid on the 
Members of one perswasion for the support of the ministers 
of any other,''^^" As in the former case the Board of 
Trade, receiving the petition on November 30, 1731, read 
it and referred it ( 5 January 1731/32 ) to the Attorney and 
Solicitor General with a second reminder of the letter of 
November 14, 1727.^^^ 

In the meantime the arrival of Governor Belcher with 
his friendly attitude toward the Quakers of Massachusetts 
Bay had caused among the Anglicans of New England a 
greater commotion than the feeble Quaker legislation of 
1728 and 1729 had produced. While the Quaker bill of 
1731 was being drafted by a committee of the lower house, 
Koger Price, in his new ofl&cial capacity as commissary for 
New England, presented a memorial to the Governor, 
Council, and House of Representatives in behalf of the 
Churchmen.^^^ Belcher in receiving his appointment had 
been given instructions which contained a new clause bear- 
ing on ecclesiastical matters. The recent legal recognition 
of the Bishop of London's jurisdiction in the colonies was 
now particularly drawn to the various governors' attention 
with the charge that they give special care to encouraging 
the bishop's commissaries in their duties.^^*^ In spite of 
Belcher's strong anti-Episcopal feeling he was prepared 
for political reasons to do what was necessary to satisfy 
Anglican interests in England, and now promised his 
support.^^^ 

The committee of the General Court in whose hands 
the affair was placed was not inclined to make immediate 

i^^This petition is given in full in Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 483, and in 
Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 454. 
'^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 483-484. 
i^^Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 272-273; Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, 

455- 

i°^C. O. 5, 916, 306-307, 20 Mar., 1729/30. 

i^'^Belcher's answer to Cutler's address to the Governor, Boston Ga- 
zette, 10-17 Aug., 1730; Belcher to the Duke of Grafton, 12 Dec, 1730, 
Fulham Mss., Mass.; Price to the Bp. of London, Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 
272; Belcher to the Bp. of London, 4 Dec, 1731, 6 Mass. Hist. Colls., VI, 
72-73', Belcher to Richard Partridge, 27 Apr., 1732, ibid., VI, 123. 



637] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 183 

concessions and asked for further proof of disabilities 
under existing legislation. In spite of immediate action 
by the joint vestries of King's Chapel and Christ Church, 
with financial support, nothing came of this petition. 
Upon receiving news of its failure they proceeded to draw 
up a further memorial to present to the King in Council,^^^ 
and solicited contributions from the rural churches of 
New England.^^^ On Feb. 7, 1731/32, the new petition 
was considered by the vestries of the two Boston churches 
and ordered sent to the Bishop of London; Thomas Sand- 
ford was chosen as agent to prosecute the petition to the 
King, and a local committee was appointed to correspond 
with him and forward money. John Checkley at this time 
went into the rural towns to get the memorial signed and 
to obtain further evidence of distraint.^®*^ 

This petition had no immediate result as the Bishop 
of London was still busy with the Massachusetts memorial 
of 1731 for which the Board of Trade's attention had been 
recently secured. Certain difficulties which made it im- 
possible to gain tlie attention of authority in 1727 had 
now been overcome and an opinion from the Attorney and 
Solicitor General was at last secured, August 16, 1732. 
Taking up the first petition, drawn before the act of 1727 
and complaining of Massachusetts ecclesiastical law, the 
lawyers pointed out that of the acts therein mentioned the 
first three had been duly confirmed by the crown, and the 
subsequent ones had become law when not within the allot- 
ted time disallowed in England. In either case such laws 
could not be repealed by His Majesty without the concur- 
rence of the Massachusetts General Court. The lawyers 
next proceeded to consider whether the acts were repug- 
nant to the charter and hence void from the beginning. 

isspoote, Annals of King's Chapel, I. 456-457, quoting the Records of 
Christ Church. 

is^Updike, Narragansett Church, II, 504-505, quoting Records of the 
Narragansett Church. The Narragansett Church pledged 28 pounds 15 
shillings. 

leopQote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 457-459, quoting the Records of 
King's Chapel and of Christ Church. 



384 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [638 

They pointed out that, ^Yhile the charter granted liberty of 
conscience, it did neither institute nor expressly prohibit 
a provincial church to be established in the colony. To 
provide for the celebration of the public worship of God 
and for the maintenance of ministers did not seem to them 
inconsistent with liberty of conscience. Even if the acts 
were illegal no extrajudicial declaration could pronounce 
them so ; a judicial proceeding on a test case was necessary. 
The act of 1727, discussed in the second petition, Yorke 
and Talbot were asked to pass upon in point of law. But, 
as they said, it was not a legal objection which was entered 
against it but prudential, the act not going far enough to 
please the people whom it was framed to pacify. ^^^ 

Edmund Gibson, when informing Price of this action 
by the law officers of the crown, expressed the regret that 
the Church had not taken steps earlier and before the 
power which the Massachusetts dissenters exercised had 
become so well established.^*^^ It is possible that an appli- 
cation in Queen Anne's reign might have proved effective, 
but for political reasons in England rather than because 
of developments in Massachusetts Bay. The Hanoverian 
succession with its substantial Whig support had altered 
conditions among English Churchmen, and these condi- 
tions were reflected in America. There was little chance 
of obtaining from law officers of the crown any legal opin- 
ion at the expense of dissenters during the Walpole regime. 
Other decisions resembled this one. Gibson was forced to 
confess that his influence at court was too weak to oppose 
the party strength of the dissenting interests.^^^ 

In spite of this condition and the unwillingness of the 
Honorable Society to push matters under such circum- 
stances, the united vestries of King's Chapel and Christ 
Church were determined to go farther. Meeting June 26 

isiPerry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 274-288. 

i^-Bp. of London to Price, 6 Feb., 1732/33, Foote, Annals of King's 
Chapel, I, 461. 

i^^Petition of the Massachusetts Churchmen to the Archbp. of Can- 
terbury, Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 464. 



639] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 185 

and October 19, 1733, they voted to try the one remaining 
mode of procedure, — a test case. A committee was accord- 
ingly appointed to seek the prosecution of such officers as 
distrained or imprisoned members of the Church of Eng- 
land in the province, to defend Churchmen in traveling to 
church on Sunday, and Church of England ministers for 
marrying in the manner of the Church. ^^"^ This measure 
was followed by a vigorous prosecution of the case of 
Matthew Ellis of Medford who, upon imprisonment for 
failure to pay a ministerial tax, sued Richard Sprague the 
constable. The case went through the Inferior Court of 
Common Pleas, the Superior Court and the Court of Re- 
view. An appeal was denied by the judges of the Superior 
Court, but was granted by the King in Council, and 
Sprague was summoned to appear before a committee of 
the Privy Council to answer for the imprisonment of 
Ellis.^^5 

Meanwhile the Bishop of London, who had met best 
success when dealing with the Massachusetts governor, ap- 
plied once more to the same authority; and Belcher now, 
as Dummer formerly, assumed certain responsibility. The 
General Court was once more led to consider the disabili- 
ties of Churchmen and, probably influenced by the recent 
action of the Boston Episcopal churches, took up the ques- 
tion of exemption. On July 4, 1734, the Baptists were 
given the same privileges which the Quakers had obtained 
two years and a half before; and on December 27, 1735, 
the Anglicans received a similar recognition. 

The law, tho not proving entirely satisfactory to the 
Church of England in the province, did away with the 
two chief objections to the act of 1727. While it provided 
merely for a return of taxes rather than a clear exemption, 
as in the case of the Baptists and Quakers, and still in- 
cluded Churchmen in a possible second assessment, it took 
a step forward in its abolition of the five mile clause. A 

i^*Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, I, 464, quoting Records of King's 
Chapel and of Christ Church. 

^^^Ibid., 464, 465, 467; Perry, Ch. Docs., Mass., 311-312. 



186 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [640 

system of identification, similar to the Baptist and Quaker 
method, was instituted, the minister and church wardens to 
indicate to the town treasurer who were members of or gave 
attendance at the Anglican church. The act was in force 
for five years.^*''' 

The passage of these two acts, the Baptist and the 
Anglican laws of 1734 and 1735, rendered practically 
unimportant the action taken by the Board of Trade and 
the Privy Council at just this time. At the failure of the 
petitions in the name of Timothy Cutler which had ab- 
sorbed the attention of the Bishop of London and the 
S. P. G. — a failure caused by the unsympathetic decision of 
Yorke and Talbot, — there still lay before the bishop the 
Quaker legislation which King's Chapel and Christ Church 
were denouncing. At the beginning of the year 1736 Gib- 
son and William Sharpe were on the alert regarding it,^*^^ 
as a decision was imminent ; but the result was not all that 
might have been desired. The real problem was avoided. 
In accordance with a report submitted by the Board of 
Trade the Lords Committee (2 Feb., 1735/36) stated that 
as the charter granted liberty of conscience to all Chris- 
tians except Roman Catholics, such exemption ought not 
to be limited to any one sect of Protestants but extended 
to all. The act was therefore considered not proper for His 
Majesty's approbation and was only saved from an un- 
favorable recommendation by its temporary character, as 
it was about to expire. The Board of Trade was ordered 
to draft an additional instruction to Belcher to restrain 
him from giving his assent in the future to any law of this 
kind unless the exemption be made general. The order 
was read at the Board on March 18, 1736.^^^ 

Belcher was not given an opportunity to show his 
recognition of this order as there was no attempt to pass 
further exemption laws during his term of office. Each of 
the three important dissenting sects had secured a tolerable 

^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 782, ch. 15, 27 Dec, 1735. 

^^''Sharpe to the Bp. of London, lo Jan., 1735/36, Fulham Mss., Mass. 

^^^Acts of the Privy Council, III, 491-492; Mass. Prov. Laws, II, 635. 



641] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 187 

arrangement wliicli tho irritating was not impracticable. 
The Anglican law of 1735 was made perpetual in 1742.^^® 
The Anglicans of Massachusetts were behind the 
Quakers in beginning their struggle to resist maintaining 
the state church, as there were very few of them in the 
country towns of the province until after the founding of 
the S. P. G, When once started the struggle resembled the 
Quaker conflict in the support which it received from the 
parent body at home, when it met failure in Boston, as well 
as in its dependence for success upon political conditions 
in England. The Massachusetts provincial governors un- 
derstood that their function in ecclesiastical matters was 
to use their influence in suppressing warring religious fac- 
tions and in maintaining "liberty of conscience," as their 
instructions commanded, in accordance with the wording 
of the province charter. In the instructions of the early 
provincial governors of Massachusetts there were no spe- 
cial charges in regard to support of the Church of Eng- 
land, but the natural sympathy of men who were stanch 
Anglicans or who supported the state church of England 
for political reasons offset this omission, and the governors 
were generally looked upon as the protectors of Anglican 
interests. Dudley, who had the clearest vision of his mis- 
sion as the exponent of British colonial policy, was espe- 
cially anxious to curb warring ecclesiastical interests and 
showed a friendly consideration for Quaker as well as 
Anglican when they came armed with petitions to gov- 
ernor and council, while he readily discharged ecclesiastical 
prisoners of either body. In spite of his adopted Anglican 
sympathies he recognized his limitations when faced by 
any Massachusetts law which had been allowed in England; 
ania in spite of repeated proddings by the Churchmen, he 
went only so far as to make urgent recommendations to 
stubborn towns where the Anglicans were in an uncom- 
fortable position. Shute, less well versed in the rights 
of the Massachusetts legislature, carried the policy of pro- 
tecting the Church to the point of overstepping his pre- 

^^^Mass. Prov. Laws, III, 25, ch. 8, i July, 1742. 



188 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [642 

rogative when he made definite orders in regard to the 
treatment of Anglicans. Dummer, who like Dudley recog- 
nized that relief for "dissenting sects" must come from 
action by the General Court, nevertheless supported the 
cause of the Church when he used his influence to secure 
a law in favor of Anglican interests. His work was so 
effectual that the Massachusetts act of 1727, relating to the 
maintenance of the ministry, contained a clause for the 
partial exemption of Anglicans. 

Back of the royal governors during this whole period 
the English Church was itself working busily, through the 
S. P. G. and the Bishop of London, The scattered Church- 
men of Massachusetts very early began to make application 
to the Society and to the Bishop, seeking relief from 
ecclesiastical charges, and some earnest recommendations 
came to Dudley, Tailer, and Shute from across the water. 
If the number of Churchmen in the country towns of 
Massachusetts had been larger, their appeals might have 
had more effect, but they were not pushed consistently, and 
the opportunity to accomplish something before the death 
of Queen Anne was lost. A little later the belief that Shute 
had authority and was exercising it for the benefit of the 
local Churchmen relieved the Society of responsibility. A 
changed conception of the power of the governor and a 
better appreciation of the legal status of Episcopacy in 
Massachusetts came to the Society at about the time that 
Gibson succeeded Robinson in the see of London ; and under 
his influence the organization took up seriously the problem 
of gaining exemption for New England Churchmen. After 
a study of the Massachusetts ecclesiastical law and an ap- 
peal to Dummer to use what influence he could, the Society 
agreed to carry the affair before His Majesty and address 
the King in Council. Politics delayed immediate action 
but the agitation was not without its effect on the Massa- 
chusetts General Court. This body was conscious of its 
unpopularity with the Board of Trade; it feared an un- 
friendly decision and anticipated it by following Dummer's 
suggestions and passing the law of 1727. The activity of 



643] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 189 

the Church party was therefore reflected in Massachusetts 
legislation but not so far as to satisfy the Anglicans. 
Finding that the law had gained practically nothing for the 
local Churchmen, the Society agreed to revive its previous 
attempt with the crown, — a decision soon strengthened 
by the passage of the Massachusetts Quaker laws of 1728, 
1729 and 1731. The influence of the Bishop of London was 
not sufiflcient to gain results satisfactory to ecclesiastical 
interests, but again the General Court was guided by fear 
of the possible course which events in England might fol- 
low. Governor Belcher's recommendation in favor of a 
satisfactory law was accepted ; the act of 1735 was passed 
and in 1742 it became perpetual. 



CONCLUSION. 

This study of church and state in Massachusetts of 
the early eighteenth centurj" may properly be closed with 
a summary of the main conclusions which have been 
reached. While some of these are of local interest merely, 
others have a much broader significance. The object of 
the study has been to reconstruct the ecclesiastical system 
of provincial Massachusetts and to show the steps by 
which it was broken down through the efforts of hostile 
forces. 

In the year 1691 Massachusetts faced the problem of 
an ecclesiastical adjustment when she found herself re- 
constituted as a royal province with an enlarged boundary 
and a broadened franchise. Her first step was to pass a 
series of legislative acts and resolves which renewed as 
far as possible the ecclesiastical law of the seventeenth 
century, while technically granting liberty of conscience, 
as decreed by the province charter. When these laws 
failed to be effective by reason of the pressure of elements 
opposed to their execution, subsequent laws made an at- 
tempt to carry through by pressure what the earlier legis- 
lation had been unable to accomplish. Fines, distraint, 
and imprisonment became more and more common as the 
laws hardened in a firm endeavor on the part of the law 
makers to maintain the old standards in the face of 
changed conditions. 

The opposing forces which gave the leaders most un- 
easiness were two, — the Episcopal element which appeared 
in the country towns of the province soon after the organi- 
zation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 
and the growing communities of Baptists, Quakers, and 
"other irreligious persons" who were to be found mainly 
in the region which had formerly belonged to Plymouth 
Colony. This second group was made up chiefly of de- 

190 



g45] CONCLUSION 191 

scendants, in the second and third generations of the 
Puritan founders of the commonwealth or of Plymouth 
Colony, who were inclined to carry to its logical conclu- \ 
sion the spirit of independent thinking which had been \ 
their heritage. Moving on from the older towns where 
extreme orthodoxy was the order and social prestige de- 
pended on it, they settled in the newer plantations of the 
northern and southern counties where their variations 
made less stir with the government at Boston or Plymouth. 
In due time many of them accepted Baptist or Quaker doc- 
trines, either finding the theology of these sects more 
satisfying than the extreme Calvinism of Massachusetts 
orthodoxy, or attracted by a freer political doctrine than 
that on ^^ich they had been reared. There were many 
who still sympathized with much of the old Puritan teach- 
in- and yet stood for a complete separation of church and 
state such as Rhode Island maintained. Others-and 
tZ doubtless made up the greater part of the inhabitants 
of the villages least under the control of the government- 
were frankly uninterested in church platforms and creeds, 
tho not violently opposed to religious teaching. Among 
such men the leaders of the hierarchy met little opposition 
so long as they were willing to finance the churches which 
they were trying to establish and did not endeavor to en- 
force the law for the maintenance of the ministry. 

Such was the condition in Massachusetts in the last 
decade of the seventeenth century. The old ecclesiastical 
svstem was failing to maintain itself in its earlier vigor 
and as the laws were made increasingly elaborate, with a 
v'ew to strengthening the position of the state churc^h 
the opposition grew more determined to defy them ihe 
IpenTng of the eighteenth century saw tliis opposition m 
two organized camps, that of the Anglican Ouirch, working 
princi;ally through the Society for the P-pagation^^ 
the Gospel, and that of the Quakers, «^PP«^^f \^^/^^*^^ 
Society of Friends in England. In tracing the steps by 
wMch these bodies secured the exemption ^gi. ation of 
The eighteenth century, we observe that the Anglicans 



192 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [646 

were for a long time less successful than the Society of 
Friends, and that this difference was caused in very great 
measure by political conditions in England. 

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, begin- 
ning its work at the opening of the eighteenth century and 
given an added impulse by the Queen's favor in the years 
immediately following, failed to realize the opportunity 
which her support offered, and met reverses after her 
death. During the early years of the eighteenth century 
the Society, when receiving appeals from Massachusetts 
Churchmen, turned to the royal governors with the ex- 
pectation that they would use their authority to relieve 
the situation. The governors were distinctly favorable to 
the Church ; and one at least went so far as to issue orders 
to town officials in a way that went quite beyond his 
authority. Most of the governors, however, were conscious 
of their limitations and recognized that a change, if made, 
must come from the General Court or through disallow- 
ance of Massachusetts legislation by the King in Council. 
When the Venerable Society was at last persuaded of the 
truth of these statements, it assumed responsibility and 
carried the matter before the proper body in England. 
In doing so it met new difficulties, as it was almost impos- 
sible to obtain favorable decisions or any real support 
from the government during the Walpole regime, for the 
nonconformists constituted too strong a wing of the Whig 
party to be offended. As a Church society the S. P. G. 
was finding itself less well supported under the House of 
Hanover than by the high-church sympathies of Queen 
Anne. Thus, in spite of the support of the royal gover- 
nors, the Bishop of London and the Venerable Society, 
the attempts made by the provincial Churchmen upon 
Massachusetts ecclesiastical law, were for a time side- 
tracked, and final success was reached only after the other 
dissenters had gained recognition and exemption. 

Meanwhile the same conditions of English politics 
which hindered the Venerable Society distinctly favored 
the English Quakers when they came to make appeals for 



647] CONCLUSION 193 

their people in Massachusetts. Between 1700 and 1718 
innumerable complaints were sent to the London Yearly 
Meeting by the Quakers of New England and in the latter 
year, finding earlier methods unavailing, the English 
Friends decided to address the government and follow up 
their plea with vigor. The Board of Trade, which was 
the principal body handling colonial affairs, was domi- 
nated by Newcastle during the following critical years of 
ecclesiastical controversy concerning Massachusetts. The 
Board was therefore ready to favor Whig interests and 
was responsible, as we have seen, for a number of decisions 
in favor of nonconformists as opposed to Churchmen. The 
situation was altered when the question was one involving 
Quaker against Puritan — for two of the dissenting sects 
were here opposing each other. The strong organization 
of the Society of Friends in England, with its wealth and 
its political influence, worked in favor of the Quakers in 
the colonies. The Massachusetts Puritans, on the other 
hand, were not consistently backed by an influential and 
wealthy body in England and were therefore left almost 
alone to resist the attacks of the Quakers on their system. 
They were, moreover, closely associated in the minds of 
the British government officials with resistance to law; 
by its ignoring of the Navigation Acts the General Court 
of Massachusetts had opposed the British commercial sys- 
tem ; it was likewise playing at this time a very independ- 
ent role in its treatment of the royal governors. The 
English government took the part of the Quaker in his 
opposition to the New England Puritan and in doing so 
struck a blow at the unpopular assembly of Massachusetts. 
It was in this way that a small matter of local signifi- 
cance, the application of seventeenth century ecclesiastical 
law in provincial Massachusetts, was influenced by Eng- 
lish party politics and the enforcement of the British colo- 
nial system. Throughout the eighteenth century the crown 
failed to maintain a consistent policy of favoring the Eng- 
lish Church in the colonies. The Churchmen of Massa- 
chusetts were therefore handicapped in their efforts to 



194 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [648 

resist the authorities at Boston in spite of the support of 
the royal governors, the Bishop of London, and the Vener- 
able Society. The Quakers on the other hand, because of 
their political influence in England, were better able to 
make headway against the unpopular General Court of 
Massachusetts. 

Altho the exemption legislation gained in this period 
was not the real religious liberty which was desired, it 
marked the first retreating step on the part of the aggres- 
sive state church of Massachusetts. Since a full disestab- 
lishment was not gained until 1833, laws of this sort 
marked the legal position of the dissenters for almost a 
hundred years. In the second half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the Baptists were the great opponents of the Congre- 
gational system, and the Church of England was at work 
during both Quaker and Baptist periods; but the Society 
of Friends was the agent most responsible for the success 
gained over Massachusetts ecclesiasticism in the first half 
of the eighteenth century. 



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Andrews, Charles M. Guide to the materials for American history to 
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Andrews, Charles M., and Davenport, Frances G. Guide to the manu- 
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British Museum, in minor London archives, and in the libraries of 
Oxford and Cambridge. Washington, 1908. 

Flagg, Charles Allcott. A guide to Massachusetts local history, being a 
bibliographic index to the literature of the towns, cities and counties 
of the state. Salem, Mass., 1907. 

Ford, W. C. A bibliography of the Massachusetts house journals, 1715- 
1776. Cambridge, Mass., 1905. 

Massachusetts. Report of the committee on the custody and condition 
of the public records of parishes, towns and counties. By Carroll D. 
Wright. Boston, 1889. 

Rhode Island Historical Society. A bibliography of Rhode Island local 
history. 

Sabin, Joseph. A dictionary of books relating to America. 19 vols. 
New York, 1862-1892. 

Smith, Joseph. Bibliotheca Quakeristica, a bibliography of miscellaneous 
literature relating to the Friends. London, 1883. 

Manuscripts. 

Public Record Office, London. Board of Trade Papers: 

Original Correspondence, Massachusetts Bay. C. O. 5, 751-/52. 1689- 

1740. 
Original Correspondence, New England, Board of Trade. C. O. 5, 

855-881. 1689-1740. 
Original Correspondence, New England, Secretary of State. C. O. 5. 

898-899. I 703- I 741. 
Entry Books, New England. C. O. 5, 905-9I7- 1688-1741- 
Journal of the Board of Trade. C. O. 391, 7-48- 1691-1740. C. O. 

391, 90-119. 1696-1735. 

195 



196 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [650 

Privy Council Office, London. Privy Council Register, 1696-1765. 
Fulham Palace, London. Papers of the Bishop of London. 

New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island. (One box 

of papers.) 
Massachusetts. (Two boxes of papers.) 
S. P. G. House, London. 

S. P. G. Letters. (A. Mss.), 1701-1736, contemporary copies, 26 vols. 
S. P. G. Papers. (B. Mss.), 1701-1786, original letters and miscel- 
laneous documents, 6 vols. 
S. P. G. Journals, 1701 et seq. 
Devonshire House, London. 

Minutes of the London Yearly Meeting. Vols. I-VH. 1668-1770. 
Minutes of the London Meeting for Sufferings. Vols. XI-XXVIL 

1696-1745- 
Epistles Received. Vol. L 1683-1706. Vol. II. 1705-1738. 
Epistles Sent. Vol. I. 1683-1703. Vol. IL 1704-1738. Vol. III. 

1738-1756. 
Book of Cases. Vol. II. 1695-1738. 
Kelsall Diaries. 
Moses Brown School, Providence, R. I. 

Records of the New England Yearly Meeting. Vol. I. 1683-1786. 
Records of the quarterly and monthly meetings of Massachusetts are 
preserved in the following places : 

R. I. Quarterly, vol. I. 1701-1746, with record of sufferings (1688- 

1720). Moses Brown School, Providence, R. I. 
Sandwich Quarterly, vol. I. 1 706-1777. Friends' Meeting House, 

New Bedford, Mass. 
Salem Quarterly, vol. I. 1706-1712, vol. II. 1727-1799. Friends' 

Meeting House, Lynn, Mass. 
R. I. Monthly, vol. I. 1676-1708, vol. II. 1708-1739. Newport 

Historical Society, Newport, R. I. 
Dartmouth Monthly, 1699-1770, (transcript). Friends' Meeting 

House, New Bedford, Mass. 
Sandwich Monthly, 1672-1754, including sufferings in "latter end" 

of book. Friends' Meeting House, New Bedford, Mass. 
Pembroke Monthly, 1701-1741. Friends' Meeting House, New 

Bedford, Mass. 
Salem Monthly, 1677-1731, including sufferings. Friends' Meet- 
ing House, Lynn, Mass. 

Seabrook Monthly, . In charge of Daniel C. Maxfield, 

Amesbury, Mass. 
State House, Bostonf 

Massachusetts Archives. 
Executive Records of the Council. 
Legislative Records of the Council. 



651] BIBLIOGRAPHY 197 

Boston Public Library. Miscellaneous Manuscripts. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Miscellaneous Manuscripts. 

New England Baptist Historical Society, Boston. Isaac Backus Papers. 

Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. Diary of Z. Collins, 1727-1768. 

Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, R. I. 

Isaac Backus Papers. 

Moses Brown Papers, 
Newport Historical Society, Newport, R. I. Letter Book of Thomas 

Richardson, 2 vols. 1710-1719. 
Bristol County Court House, Taunton, Mass. Records of the General 

Sessions of the Peace for the County of Bristol, 3 vols. 1702-1738. 

Printed Sources 

Andros Tracts, with notes and memoir, edited by W. H. Whitmore. 3 

vols. Prince Society Publications. Boston, 1868-1874. 
Chalmers, George. Opinions of eminent lawyers on various points of 

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Vt., 1858. 
Great Britain. Calendar of state papers, colonial series, America and the 

West Indies. London, 1860-1912. 
Hutchinson, Thomas. Collection of papers. Prince Society Publications. 

2 vols. Albany, N. Y., 1865. 
Massachusetts. The acts and resolves, public and private, of the Province 

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Massachusetts. Journals, proceedings and debates of the House of Rep- 
resentatives of his majesty's province of the Massachusetts Bay in 

New England. Boston and Watertown, 171S-1777. 
Massachusetts Historical Society Collections. 

Diary of Samuel Sewall. Series 5, V-VII. 

Letter Book of Samuel Sewall. Series 6, I-II. 

Diary of Cotton Mather. Series 7, VII. 

Mather Papers. Series 4, VIII. 

Hinckley Papers. Series 4, V. 

Belcher Papers. Series 6, VI-VII. 
Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings. 
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to the quarterly and monthly meetings in Great Britain, Ireland, and 

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Protestant Episcopal Historical Society Collections. 2 vols. New York, 

1851-1853. 



198 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [652 

Rhode Island Historical Society Collections. Diary of John Comer, VIII. 

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Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. Some corre- 
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Chalkley, Thomas. Forcing a maintenance, not warantable from the 
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Edmundson, William. Journal of the life, travels and sufferings of labour 
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don, 1774. 

Fothergill, John. Life and travels of John Fothergill. London, 1753. 

Honeyman, James. Faults on all sides. The case of religion consider'd. 
Newport, 1728. 

Humphreys, David. An historical account of the incorporated Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, 1730. 

Keith, George. A journal of travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck, 
on the continent of North America. London, 1706. 

Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana; or, the ecclesiastical his- 
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Rev. Thomas Robbins and memoir by S. G. Drake. 2 vols. Hartford, 
Conn., 1855. 

Mather, Cotton. Ratio disciplinse fratrum Novanglorum. A faithful 
account of the discipline professed and practiced in the churches of 
New England. Boston, 1726. 

Mather, Increase. Discourse concerning the maintenance due to those 
that preach the gospel. Boston, 1706. 



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Mather, Increase. The excellency of a publick spirit discoursed : in a 
sermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the 
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Boston, 1702. 

Mather, Increase. The great blessing of primitive counsellours. Boston. 

Neal, Daniel. The history of New-England containing an impartial ac- 
count of the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the country to 1700. 2 
vols. London, 1747. 

Oldmixon, John. The British empire in America, containing the history 
of the discovery, settlement, progress and present state of all the 
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London, 1708. 

Quakers Tythe Bill, Papers relating to. London, 1736. 

Richardson, John. Account of the life of that ancient servant of Jesus 
Christ, John Richardson. London, 1774. 

Sewel, William. History of the rise, increase and progress of the Chris- 
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Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Abstracts of 
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Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. An account 
of the society. London, 1706. 

Trott, Nicholas. The laws of the British plantations in America relating 
to the church and clergy, religion and learning London, 1721. 



General and Special Histories, Etc. 

Adams, Brooks. The emancipation of Massachusetts. Boston and New 
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Adams, Charles Francis. Massachusetts ; its historians and its history. 
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Adams, Charles Francis. Three episodes of Massachusetts history. 2 
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Allen, W. O. B., and McClure, Edmund. Two hundred years : The his- 
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Anderson, J. S. M. History of the Church of England in the colonies. 
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Armitage, Thomas. A history of the Baptists ; traced by their vital prin- 
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Backus, Isaac. A history of New England. With particular reference to 
the denomination of Christians called Baptists, with notes by David 
Weston. 2 vols. Newton, Mass., 1871. 



200 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [654 

Biographical Catalogue, being an account of the lives of Friends and 
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Bowden, James. The history of the Society of Friends in America. 2 
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Buck, Edward. Massachusetts ecclesiastical law. Boston, 1866. 

Burrage, Henry S. History of the Baptists in New England. Philadel- 
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Channing, Edward. Town and county government in the English colonies 
of North America. Johns Hopkins University Studies. Baltimore, 
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Cobb, San ford H. Rise of religious liberty in America. New York, 1902. 

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Cross, Arthur L. The Anglican episcopate and the American colonies. 
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Dale, R. W. History of English Congregationalism. London, 1907. 

Dickerson, O. M. American colonial government, 1696-1765. Cleveland, 
1912. 

Drysdale, A. H. Presbyterians in England. London, 1889. 

Foote, Henry W. Annals of King's Chapel from the Puritan age of New 
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Ford, David B. New England's struggle for religious liberty. Philadel- 
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Gough, John. History of the people called Quakers. 4 vols. Dublin, 
I 789- I 790. 

Hallowell, Richard P. The pioneer Quakers. Boston, 1887. 

Howard, George E. An introduction to the local constitutional history 
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1889. 

Hutchinson, Thomas. History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 
1691-1750. 3 vols. Boston, 1764-1828. 

Hutton, William H. The English Church from the accession of Charles I 
to the death of Anne, 1625-1714. London, 1903. 

Jones, Rufus M. The Quakers in the American colonies. London, 191 1. 

Kimball, Everett. The public life of Joseph Dudley. A study of the 
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Lauer, P. E. Church and state in New England. Johns Hopkins Univer- 
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Lloyd, Walter. The story of Protestant dissent and English Unitarian- 
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McConnel, Samuel D. History of the American Episcopal Church. New 
York, 1899. 

Marvin, A. P. Life and times of Cotton Mather. Boston, 1892. 



655] BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 

Newman, A. H. History of the Baptist churches in America. New York, 

1893. 
Overton, John H. Life in the English Church, 1660-1714. London, 1885. 
Overton, John H., and Relton, Frederic. The English Church from the 

accession of George I to the end of the eighteenth century, 1714-1800. 

London, 1906. 
Palfrey, John G. History of New England. 5 vols. Boston, 1860-1890. 
Pascoe, C. F. Classified digest of the records of the S. P. G., 1701-1892. 

London, 1893. 

Pascoe, C. F. Two hundred years of the S. P. G., 1701-1900. London, 
1901. 

Perry, William S. History of the American Episcopal Church. 2 vols. 
Boston, 1885. 

Phillips, Sadler. The early English colonies. A summary of the lecture 
by the Right Hon. and Right Rev. Arthur Foley, Lord Bishop of 
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Quakers. A brief account of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New- 
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Quincy, Josiah. The history of Harvard University. 2 vols. Boston, i860. 

Skeats, H. S. and Miall, Charles S. History of the Free Churches of 
England, 1688-1891. London, 1891. 

Slafter, Edmund. John Checkley; or the evolution of religious tolerance 
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Spencer, Henry R. Constitutional conflict in provincial Massachusetts ; a 
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Steiner, Bernard C. Rev. Thomas Bray. His life and selected works 
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Thomas, Allen C, and Richard H. History of the Society of Friends in 
America. New York, 1900. 

Tiffany, Charles C. History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
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Trumbull, Benjamin. A complete history of Connecticut, civil and eccle- 
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Turell, Ebenezer. The life and character of the Reverend Benjamin Col- 
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Uhden, Hermann F. Geschichte der Congregationalisten in New England 
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Boston, 1858. 



202 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [656 

Walker, Williston. Creeds and platforms of Congregationalism. New- 
York, 1893. 

Walker, Williston. History of tlie Congregational churches in the United 
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Weeden, William B. Economic and social history of New England, 1620- 
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Wendell, Barrett. Cotton Mather, the Puritan priest. New York, 1891. 

Winsor, Justin. The memorial history of Boston, 1630-1880. 8 vols. 
Boston, 1884-1889. 

Wood, Nathan E. The history of the First Baptist Church of Boston. 
1665-1899. Philadelphia, 1899. 

Local Histories. 

Adams, Charles Francis, Jr. History of Quincy. Cambridge, Mass., 1891. 
Bicknell, Thomas W. History of Barrington, R. I. Providence, R. I., 

1898. 
Coffin, Joshua. A sketch of the history of Newbury, Newburyport, and 

West Newbury from 1635 to 1845. Boston, 1845. 
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Currier, John J. "Ould Newbury :" historical and biographical sketches. 

Boston, 1896. 
Daggett, John. A sketch of the history of Attleborough. Boston, 1894. 
Ellis, Leonard B. History of New Bedford and its vicinity, 1602-1892. 

Syracuse, N. Y., 1892. 
Fowler, Orin. History of Fall River, with notices of Freetown and 

Tiverton. Fall River, 1862. 
Hurd, D. H. History of Bristol County, Massachusetts. Philadelphia, 

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Jenkins, Charles W. Early history of the town of Falmouth. Falmouth, 

Mass., 1889. 
Little Compton, R. L The 175th anniversary of the organization of the 

United Congregational Church of Little Compton, R. L Providence, 

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Munro, Wilfred H. The history of Bristol, R. L Providence, R. L, 1880. 
Potter, William J. The first Congregational society in New Bedford, 

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INDEX 

Akin, John, 119, 126. 

Andros, Edmund, 8, 17, 20. 

Anglicans, see Church of England. 

Anne, Queen, 10, 11, 148. 

Anthony, Joseph, 119, 126. 

Ashurst, Henry, loi. 

Ashurst, William, 153. 

Attleboro, 68, 70, ^2, 83, 159. 

Avery, Joseph, minister at Freetown, 81, 

Backus, Isaac, 22-23, 44, 86. 

Baptists in England, 11-13; i" the colonies, 14; church in Boston, 39; in 
Mass. in 1700, 44-46; increase in Mass., 50, 86; resistance to ecclesias- 
tical law at Swansea, 71-73; attack on Mass. church-state system, 17, 
86, 132-134, 141. For exemption laws, see Laws. 

Barclay, William, Anglican missionary at Braintree, 156. 

Barnstable County, 2>7\ Quakers in, 44; enforcement of ecclesiastical law 
in, 69-70. 

Barrington, 159. 

Belcher, Jonathan, member of the Council, 117; governor, 136; relation 
to Quakers, 136-144, 145; relation to Anglicans, 182-189. 

B'ellomont, Earl of, governor, 92. 

Board of Trade, origin, 96 ; attack on proprietary governments, 97 ; change 
in character after 1723, 131 ; relation to Quakers, 93, 98-99, 100, 102, 
117, 123-25, 146; relation to Anglicans, 176, 181-182, 186. 

Borden, Richard, 95, 105, 107, 108, 109, 112, 118, 131, 134, 136, 137-138. 

Boston, ministerial support in, 23, 25-26, 27, 38; churches in 1700, 38. 

Braintree, 155-158, 159, 163-164, 167, I77-I79- 

Bray, Thomas, 11, 97, 150, 152. 

Bridger, John, 161, 166. 

Bristol, 148, 158-159, 160, 171, 180-187. 

Bristol County, zi \ character, 38, 44, tz; enforcement of ecclesiastical law 
through Court of General Sessions, 31, 70-84, 157; Anglicans in, 71, 
154-155, 156-159, 160; Baptists in, 44-46; Quakers in, 44. 

Brown, John, 155, 

Brown, Moses, 86. 

Burnet, William, governor, 180. 

203 



204 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [658 

Charles II, 8, 9. 

Charter, Mass. charter of 1629, 7; Mass. charter of 1691, 8-9, 17, 21, 94, 
142. 

Checkley, John, 183 

Christ Church, Boston, 148, 159, 183, 185. 

Church of England, relation to imperial policy, 9-10; relation to Quakers, 

13-14, 49, 97, 141-143, 150-151; introduced in Mass., 15-16, 39, 50; 

strength in Mass. in 1725, 148; attack on Mass. church-state system, 

17. 163-189. For exemption laws, see Laws. 
Colonial policy, 7-8. 

Compton, Henry, Bishop of London, 148-149. 153-154, 156. 
Congregationalists, in England, 11-13, 16; relation to English Quakers, 

98-101, no; relation to New England Congregationalists, 14-16, 99- 

102, no. 

Connecticut, ecclesiastical system, 16, 35; law against heretics, 97, 98-101, 

105; Anglicans in, 151. 
Convention of ministers, 28, 174. 
Council of Churches, 28-30, 84. 
County, see General Sessions of the Peace. 
Craghead, Thomas, minister at Freetown, 81-82. 
Crouch, William, 93-94, 95, 102, 103. 
Cutler, Timothy, 159, 160, 174, 181. 

Dan forth, Samuel, minister at Taunton, "j"], 79, 80. 

Dartmouth, Baptists in, 46, 70; Quakers in, 70; resistance to ecclesiastical 

law in, 31, 68, "j^, 74-77, 107-112, 1 19-127. 
Diamond, Richard, 93. 

Dissenters in Mass., see Church of England, Baptists, Quakers. 
Dudley, Joseph, president of the Council, 20; governor, 98; policy, 146, 

165; relation to Quakers, 98, 112, 146, 165; relation to Anglicans, 163- 

168, 187. 
Doimmer, Jeremiah, Mass. agent, iii, 124; governor, 171-179, 188-189. 

Eager, Thomas, Anglican missionary at Braintree, 157. 
Eccleston, Theodor, 96. 

Essex County, 36; Quakers in, 60; Anglicans in, 160-163. 
Exemption legislation, see Laws. 

Falmouth, 44, 68, 69-70. 

Field, John, 93, 96, 102, no. 

Franchise, in 17th century, 19-20; affected by charter of 1691, 9, 25. 

Freetown, 68, 70, 72, 79-82, 154, 156-159. 

Friends, see Quakers. 

Frontier settlements, 52-53, 63-68, 83-84, 85, 



659] INDEX 205 

General Court, authority limited by charter of 1691, 9; relation to estab- 
lished church, 30; responsible for enforcement of ecclesiastical law, 
32, 75; formation of precincts, 55-60; regulation of land for use of 
ministry, 62 ; concerned with securing ministers, 62-63 ; relation to 
frontier settlements, 53, 63-68; 83-84; management of "unorthodox" 
communities, 68-84; memorial to the Queen, 109; change in attitude 
toward Quakers, 145-146. For exemption legislation, see Laws. 

General Sessions of the Peace, 27, 30, 31, 32, 63, 84-85. 

Gibson, Edmund, Bishop of London, 172-188. 

Goddard, Beriah, 126-127. 

Gurney, John, 96 

Guy, William, Anglican missionary at Narragansett, 157-158. 

Hampshire County, 36. ■ 

Harris, Henry, 172. 

Harvard College, 74-76. 

Hastwell, Edward, 96. 

Hollis, Thomas, 134. 

Honeyman, Anglican missionary at Newport, 154, 157, 158. 

Howland, Henry, 126 

Huguenots, in Boston, 38. 

Hunt, Samuel, minister at Dartmouth, 76-77. 

Hyam, Thomas, 96. 

Independents, see Congregationalists. 
Indians, 37-38, 153. 

James II, 8. 

Keith, George, 150, 153, 154, 155. 
King's Chapel, Boston, 41, 148, 183, 185. 

Lambton, John, Anglicans' missionary at Newbury, 162. 

Land, for use of ministry, 58-59, 61-62. 

Laws of Massachusetts, for maintenance of ministers, (1692), 24, 26, 61, 
93, 119-120; (1693), 26, 61; (1695), 29-30, 62; (1697), 30; (1702), 31, 
83; (1706), 32, 75, 105; (1715), 32, 113-114, 119-120; (1722), 32, 113; 
(1727), 179-180; for exemption of Anglicans, (1727), 176, 179-180, 
188; (1735), 142, 185, 189; (1742), 187, 189; for exemption of Bap- 
tists, (1728), 132; (1729), 135; (1734), 141, 185; (1740), 141, 143; 
for exemption of Quakers, (1717), 114; (1720), 117-118; (1721), 118- 
119; (1728), 132; (1729), 135; (1731), 138-139; (1737). 143. 

Little Compton, 70, 82-83, 105, 154-159. 

Lucas, Henry, Anglican missionary at Newbury, 162. 

Luther, Samuel, Baptist minister at Swansea, 72-73. 

Lynn, 91, 94, 105. 



206 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS | 660 

Marblehead, i6o, 169-170. 

Marsh, Joseph, minister at Tiverton, '/6. 

Maryland, 97, 98, 151. 

Massachusetts, composition and character in 1700, 35 ct scq. 

Mather, Cotton, 22. 

Mather, Increase, 8, 14, 22, 50, 100, 102. 

Metcalf, Joseph, minister at Falmouth, 70. 

Middlesex County, 37. 

Miller, Ebenezer, Anglican missionary at Braintree, 159-160. 

Ministers, see Court of General Sessions, General Court, Land, Laws, 

Salaries. 
Mossom, David, Anglican missionary at Marblehead, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175. 
Myles, Samuel, 80, 155, 172-173, 174. 

Narragansett, 154. 

Newbury, 148, 161-163, 164, 165-166, 170-171, 178-179. 

Newbury, Walter, 106, 114. 

Newcastle, Duke of, 96-97, 131, 146. 

Newport, 153. 

Nicholson, Francis, 158, 166, 178. 

Orem, James, Anglican missionary at Bristol, 158-159, 171, 172. 

Partridge, Richard, 96, 122-124, 128, 129-130, 136, 138-139, 140, 144. 

Penn, William, 95, loi. 

Pennsylvania, 97, 151. 

Pickering, Theophilus, minister at Tiverton, 127. 

Plant, Matthias, Anglican missionary at Newbury, 177, 178. 

Plymouth Colony, 27, 36, 42, 43, 44. 

Plymouth County, 37, 43. 

Precinct, 53-60. 

Presbyterians, 11-13, 14, 16, 98-99. 

Price, Roger, 142, 182. 

Privy Council, Quaker appeals to, 92, 100; (1719), 117; (1723), 123-126; 
(1725), 130-131, 146; Anglican appeals to, (1726), 175-176; (1731), 
181-182; (1732), 183-184; (1736), 142, 185-186; concerned with Mass. 
synod, 175. 

Proprietary governments, attack on, 97-98. 

Providence, 154, 159. 

Puritans, see Congregationalists. 

Quarter Sessions, see General Sessions of the Peace. 

Quakers, in England, 11, 13; influence, 95-97, 144, 146; doctrine, 42; atti- 
tude of Puritan toward, 48; attitude of Church of England toward, 
49; organization, 87; London Yearly Meeting, 13, 91 et seq., 145; 
London Meeting for Sufferings, 87 et seq.; opposition to attack on 



661] INDEX 207 

proprietary governments, 97; decline, 86; in the colonies, 13-14; fore- 
shadowed by Antinomians, 41; arrival in Mass., 15, 42; in Boston, 
39; numbers in Mass. in 1700, 43-44, 46-47; attitude toward Mass. 
charter of 1691, 22; New England Yearly Meeting, 47-48, 89 et seq.; 
Sandwich and Scituate Quarterly, 47, 137; Rhode Island Quarterly, 
47, 90, IDS, 107, 108, 117-118, 129, 134, 137; Salem Quarterly, 47, 106- 
107; Greenwich Monthly, 47; Rhode Island Monthly, 47, 105, no; 
Dartmouth Monthly, 47, 76, 107, in, 114, 137; Sandwich Monthly, 47; 
Pembroke Monthly, 47; Salem Monthly, 47, 88, 91, 92; Hampton 
Monthly, 47 ; Dover Monthly, 47 ; resistance to ecclesiastical law at 
Dartmouth and Tiverton, 73-78; atfack on Mass. church-state system, 
86, 91-147. For exemption laws, see Laws. 
Quincy, Col., 178. 

Randolph, Edward, 8, 17, 20, 97. 

Rhode Island, 35, 42, 97, 151, 153. 

Richardson, Thomas, 95, 115, 116, 117, 122-123, 128, 129, 135. 

Robinson, John, Bishop of London, 172. 

Salaries of ministers, 61, 62, 82, 85. 

Salem, 161. 

Sandwich, 43, 68, 69. 

Scituate, 160. 

Sharpe, John, 123-124. 

Sharpe, William, 175, 180-181, 186. 

Shaw, William, Anglican missionary to Marblehead, 161. 

Shute, Samuel, governor, relation to Quakers, 144; relation to Anglicans, 

169-171, 173, 187-188. 
Sisson, John, 119, 126. 
Slocum, Ebenezer, 108. 
Smith, Deliverance, no. 

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, n, 13, 150. 
Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded, 11, 150; 

purposes, 13, 150-153; work in Rhode Island, 153; work in Mass., 41, 

71, 79-80, 154-163. 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, 153. 
Society for the Propagation of Religion, 153. 
Society of Friends, see Quakers. 
Suffolk County, ^7. 
Swansea, Baptist church in, 45, 70: resistance to ecclesiastical law, 68, 71- 

73, 133; Anglican church in, I54-I55. I59- 
Synod, 50, n2, I74-I75- 

Taber, Jacob, 126-127. 
Taber, Philip, 1 19-126. 
Taber, Thomas, no. 



208 CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS [662 

Tailer, William, lieutenant-governor, 112, 168-169. 

Taxes, general, 32-34. 9°; for maintenance of ministers, regulation of in 

forming new precincts, 57-58; added to province assessment, 32, 74, 

78, 85, 107, 111-112, 120-121. 
Tiverton, Baptists in, 46; Quakers in, 70; Anglicans in, 154-159; resistance 

to ecclesiastical law^, 31, 68, yz. 74-78, 107-112, 119-127. 
Town, 61-85. 
Town meeting, 30-31. 
Tucker, John, 107, in, 114, 128-130. 

Vesey, Col., 155, 167. 

Voluntary contributions to ministers, see Salaries. 

Walpole, Robert, 10, 97, 131, 146, 148. 
Wanton, John, 115, 117-118, 129, 135. 
Wanton, Joseph, 108, 131, 134, 136, 137-138. 
Way, William, minister at Freetown, 79-81. 
West, Richard, 123, 124. 
Wheaton, Ephraim, 134. 
Whigs, see Walpole. 

William III, relation to Mass. cliarter, 8, 17 ; relation to Mass. ecclesias- 
tical legislation, 17; colonial policy, 96; religious policy, 148. 
Wyeth, Joseph, 96, 102. 



VITA. 

I was born in Roxbury, ^Massachusetts, August 16, 
1884, and ^yas prepared for college in the public schools 
of Westfield, Massachusetts. In 1907 I was graduated 
from Mount Holyoke College witli the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts; in 1908 I received the degree of blaster of Arts in 
History from the University of Illinois, and during the 
two following years acted as assistant in European His- 
tory at the same institution. In 1910-1911 I completed 
my resident work for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
at the University of Illinois, holding one of the university 
fellowships, and have since spent three months in England 
collecting material for the completion of tliis tliesis. 



Vim 



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